EVE Effect
by Grushdeva
Summary: What if a wormhole made a connection that led somewhere other then W-space?
1. Lost and Found

**Diclaimer**: EVE Online is owned by CCP and Mass Effect by Bioware, I claim ownership of nothing except the storyline.

I started writing this story after it got stuck in my head while writing my original EVE Online fic after playing Mass Effect. It got so stuck i needed to write it out in order to even think about the original story. So i figured i might as well post this as well. I saw another EVE and ME cross over was here as well, but it seems un updated and i have a different take on it anyway. I have no idea how frequent updates on this will be, butwe'll just see where it goes.

Also i have no idea how familiar any of you will be with either EVE or ME from either side and i will be using some terms that might be unknown. I willt try to explain most as best i can, but if i miss something feel free to ask and i'll either update the chapter or just give a definition at the start of the next or current chapter. Either way i hope someone has fun reading it.

**Lost and Found**

"So Commander, what do you think?"

"I really don't know Joker." Shepard answered as he stared at what appeared to be a massive disturbance in space. Almost as if space had collapsed in on itself in that spot. After picking up Jack from the purgatory, they had been waiting for word from the Illusive man for there next target when EDI detected a strange anomaly in their present system. Curious Shepard had ordered a course be set to check it out and now here they were.

"I have completed my analysis of the anomaly." EDI piped up.

"I'd love to hear it." Shepard said, never moving from the cockpit window looking out at the anomaly.

"It appears to be some type of wormhole. The readings I am getting indicate a great amount of gravimetric, electromagnetic as well as mass effect field distortions. Visually you can see what appears to be another set of stars through the wormhole itself."

"So basically it's a big hole in space, so where does it go?" Joker piped up.

"I am uncertain, I am cross-referencing all know star clusters against this profile, so far no match."

"Commander, I suggest we document all readings and send them along to Cerberus before moving forward. This phenomenon is interesting, but hardly a task that is mission critical." Miranda added.

"Not entirely true operative Lawson. Find anomaly interesting. Lots of theories on wormholes but never discovered one before, implications stunning. Could have possible use for travel, how did it form and can it be duplicated? New technology gained from new principles could be used against collectors, maybe reapers. Travel not dependent on Mass Effect fields? Very interesting."

Shepard rolled his eyes at Mordin who just rattled that off. "Were not in that much of a hurry yet Miranda and were sending the data to the Alliance, not Cerberus." Miranda decided to ignore that last comment, more focused on gaining data from the wormhole at present.

"Shepard the wormhole seems to be changing, its readings are spiking across the board. I suggest we clear to a safe distance."

"Already on it!" As Joker started frantically operating the Normandy, quickly moving it over 40 clicks from the anomaly and aligned out for ftl jump if needed. The rest of the crew had moved to the holographic display in the center of the CIC to watch. The anomaly flared up brilliantly and all of them let out a cry as the anomaly seemed to crash in on itself. The resulting singularity burst outwards in a pulse that flooded the Normandy sensors and rocked the ship as it passed by.

"Status Joker?" Shepard yelled.

"Were all ok as far as I can tell, some fried circuits, but nothing major."

"Shepard I'm picking up another energy signature. It appeared right at the moment of the pulse. However I am having trouble tracking it with current interference, attempting to clear up sensors." EDI piped up. "Done, reestablishing sensor lock. Analyzing and routing the feed to your command console."

They all stared at the picture of a sleek gold gleaming hull.

Shepard was the first to find his tongue again. "Is that a ship?"

"Preliminary analysis suggest so. The object is exactly 479 meter long and thruster ports of some sort are active at the back judging by the heat signature. I am detecting significantly higher power outputs then would be normal for a ship that size. Additionally I detect no mass effect field distortions of any kind." Was EDI's response.

Mordin immediately started rattling off. "Implications astounding, could signify non eezo depended form of space travel. Wonder if anomaly is connected to….."

Shepard tuned the noise out as Miranda and Edi started weighing in as well and took a moment to think. "Joker make sure were ready to go in a moment's notice if that thing is trouble. Engage the stealth drive and make sure the Javelin launchers are loaded in case we need them quick."

"Aye aye, commander."

Now let's hope this thing turns out to be friendly.

On the other ship Eve was cursing that the wormhole had closed behind here. It had been an unknown wormhole, but according to her readings it shouldn't have collapsed with only her Legion class strategic cruisers mass passing through. Now she would be stuck here without a prober with her. Oddly she noted that she wasn't getting a K code identification either and all her comm. channels seemed to be down. Only two seconds later did she notice she wasn't alone here.

"Unknown signature? Odd." She thought as she zoomed on it further and her sensors started piping data into her brain, part of it she brushed off to Aura for analysis. It didn't match any know ship models on the market today. Hell it didn't even resemble any form of design she had seen. At around 100 meters long the ship was slightly longer then a frigate, but with remarkably lower power outputs. Her sensor were also picking up some strange energy readings she couldn't identify. Besides the normal heat signatures there were some odd gravimetric readings that seemingly made no sense.

Suddenly some of her sensor lost all track of the vessel. It was still there, she could see it, and her gravimetric and magnometric sensors were still telling her it was there. But heat emissions and the strange energy were completely gone. Quickly analyzing the rest of the data with the new maneuvering the frigate was doing she deduced it must have cloaked, or whatever that things equivalent of it was. For her it didn't really make it that much harder to spot.

She was still curious though. It appeared in no way a threat though her scans of the ships suggested it was armed. Was it alone here or would it have backup close by. Her directional scanner was clear of objects, beyond the normal planets and moons. Her instincts screamed at her to make the first move, he who shot first generally won after all, but she didn't know anything about this ship. Quickly she considered her options only to come to the conclusion that the simplest thing to do was just to start talking. If worst came to worst one or 2 rounds of here energy neutralizer should definitely cap something that small out and she could leave.

Choice made, opening a channel.

"Commander I have an incoming comm. signal from the unknown vessel. It's blanketing most known spectrums, in all likely hood it is unsure as to how to contact us."

Shepard looked up from studying it on the map and answered. "Can you isolate and establish a connection on one of the frequencies?"

"I believe so." Came the immediate reply.

Shepard nodded. "Good route the signal to the comm. room, I'll take it there. Let's see what were dealing with here."

Upon entering the comm. room a highly distorted hologram and static noise appeared in front of him. "EDI can you clear this up?"

"I will try, the vessel is using an encryption I am unfamiliar with." Came the reply.

Before she even finished the sentence the hologram cleared into a crystal sharp image of what appeared to be a young human women. With a strong emphasize on human. "Well that was fast EDI."

"That was not me. The signal modified itself to match our incoming communications protocols. Shepard this modification was made with speed and accuracy not obtainable by any organic, there is an AI on board."

Shepard nodded and focused his attention back to the hologram. In front of him stood a rather small but good looking human women with short blue hair to her shoulders. All she was wearing were some form of black combat trousers and sturdy looking boots and a blue tank top the complimented her hair. What still nagged him though, was that she seemed human. That didn't seem possible.

The hologram just smiled and started. "Well I was hoping for a slightly more conversational meeting."

The second surprise, she was talking the same language as him. He knew translators had come a long way so he could perfectly understand any alien known. But this one wasn't known, no matter how human it may have looked. Even more worrying was that the translator hadn't kicked in at all, the designated light wasn't burning. It had deemed the output understandable to Shepard, which meant the alien was actually speaking English. "Well this is certainly unexpected." He mumbled.

The hologram smiled even brighter. "Ah it speaks after all. Allow me to introduce myself, you may call me Eve."

That broke Shepard out of his thoughts. "I'm Commander John Shepard, captain of the SSV Normandy. I'm assuming you're the one in charge of the other vessel."

The holo nodded. "You could say that, yes." She looked around a bit as if to take in the interior. "Now could you be so kind as to tell me where I've exactly ended up, because it doesn't seem to be where I expected to go."

Shepard couldn't help but smile at the light tone Eve had taken. "Well, we call this the Osun system. Though I'm not sure that will mean anything to you."

She shook her head at the smile faded to a small twitch at the side of her lips. "No it doesn't."

Shepard couldn't contain his curiosity by this point. "I have to ask though, are you human? And where did you learnt to speak English?"

The question seemed to surprise her. "I'm mostly human yes, as far as I know anyway. What's so odd about that? As for the speaking English, I simply downloaded the translation package stored in your standard communications protocol."

"Wait you just downloaded our language and now you can speak it?"

"Well yes, it only took a few seconds to learn." The holo giggled and continued. "Though I have to ask what kind of language Salarian is. That many clicks and squeaks in a language is just odd. Even Minmatar for all their grunting have proper words and syntax."

Shepard was struggling to wrap his head around that. "Sorry, but this is just a bit odd to me. I don't know these Minmatar, but pretty much all aliens we run into are not human."

"Not human?" That seemed to surprise her more. "The Minmatar I just spoke of are also human. Every race I know of is human, even the Jovians for all their genetic enhancements are technically still human."

"Wait you've never met any aliens?"

Eve shook her head again. "Not as far as I know, pretty interesting concept though."

Shepard briefly considered all this. They had much to talk about and Eve definitely seemed friendly enough. "Well if you want you can come on board so we can talk in person, would make a lot of this a lot easier wouldn't you agree."

For a second the holo remained eerily motionless before it nodded. "Eh why not, I'll maneuver beside you. Tell your pilot to ready the airlock, I'll be over in a second." And with that the hologram clicked off.

"Eh, commander. That thing just started moving towards us. You want me to start powering up the mass effect drive?" Joker came over comms. a split second later.

"That's a negative Joker. Prep the airlock and alert the rest to meet us in the comm. room, we've got a visitor coming over and I think you'll like her." Shepard responded as he headed towards the front of the ship again.


	2. Introductions

**Diclaimer**: EVE Online is owned by CCP and Mass Effect by Bioware, I claim ownership of nothing except the storyline.

I doubt i'll keep this pace up, but second chapter is a go. The third will probably be somewhere next week if i know myself. I would like to note here that i'm adapting some of the standard eve lore techs to make this work better. Some things done for gameplay purposes simply make no sense in relation to the story and others i'm adapting to make sure a capsuleer can still act like a capsuleer.

As always i hope you enjoy it and any comments are always welcome.

**Introductions**

Eve maneuvered her ship to only a few meters from the Normandy and extended the docking tube. She couldn't be bothered with fully disconnecting and then getting presentable though, would take too much time. So instead she simply jump cloned to a presentable clone stored in a stasis tube near the docking port. It was dressed as the projection she had conjured up earlier for ease of presentation and featured standard implants as well as some hardwires use full when out of the ship, unlike her piloting clone. Besides the metal plugs on her back and neck nothing would seem out of the ordinary though. Quickly she made her way across the tube to the Normandy's decontamination chamber and waited the scan out.

Meanwhile she was pondering her options. Her scans had detected an object about the size of a stargate in system, but it was sending out massive amounts of that strange gravimetric energy and she was still unsure of what that would do with her ship. Her navigation systems had already plotted out most of the star systems surrounding them but no recognizable pattern had emerged yet. She truly seemed to be in another galaxy. That also brought doubts around her immortality about though. Usually when her ship was destroyed she would just wake up in a station somewhere and move on. But she had detected no space stations as of yet and it would be unlikely that they had technology compatible with her neural implants. At least her ship itself still had an on board cloning bay, which meant her immortality was intact as long as the ship itself remained safe.

In theory her fluid routers should remain connected to its quantum pair no matter where she went. This is why it still worked in wormhole space. Theoretically it could just mean that the vast distance between galaxies she had covered had made even quantum pairs lag, though that wasn't a theory she was willing to put to the test. It seemed farfetched, but it was the only reason she could think off why quantum communication would be down. Admittedly she had never bothered to become an expert at the technology, but it would probably be worth crosschecking her database for the full specs and related theories.

A small blip announced the end of the scan and the doors opened to reveal Commander Shepard. She smiled and almost automatically she linked to the on board computer.

He had expected her to be taller somehow. He was around 1 meter 90 long, but she stood at least a full head shorter. Around 1.60 he guessed. She exhumed a wave of confidence that belied her small stature though. She lightly walked in. "Interesting security you have here."She said as she stopped in front of him.

He frowned, not really sure what to say to that when EDI piped in. "Shepard she has attempted to link with the Normandy's on board computer, I have isolated her frequency and she has made no attempt to further engage the link."

She smiled apologetically at that. "Yeah, sorry about that. Just a matter of habit. No offense intended."

Shepard stored that piece of information away for later, but graciously accepted the apology as he guided her to the comm. room. "No problem, were not that used to people linking with computers."

She laughed and followed along. "This is going to be one fun conversation then."

He smiled and specifically guided her through the lab and not the armory on their way to the comm. room. Upon entering everyone assembled looked up at. She seemingly hesitated for a split second at the sight of Garrus, Mordin and Grunt, but continued on. Shepard was about to start the introductions, when Eve made a giggling sound and pointed at Mordin. "You!" Mordin looked at Eve and then Shepard, but he was just as surprised as Mordin was. "Now the clicking and squeaking language makes sense. You have to be Salarian."

Mordin got over his confusing quickly and nodded. "I am indeed and you appear human."

She smiled back. "That's because I am human."

Shepard cut in at this point. "Before Mordin starts a debate with you about whether or not you're human, let's get the introductions done first." She nodded and smiled apologetically in reply. "From left to right we have Grunt, a Krogan." Grunt pounded his fists together and nodded as greeting. Eve just nodded back with an interested look, though seemed not intimidated in the least. "Then there's Jacob Taylor." Jacob saluted and quickly mouthed: "Pleasure to meet you ma'am." Eve answered by nodding. "Likewise." Shepard continued on. "Then there's doctor Mordin Solus, who as you guessed is Salarian, and Garrus Vakarian, who's a Turian." Garrus simply nodded while Mordin gave a slightly longer welcome. "Excited to meet you, look forward to good relations and exchange of knowledge." Eve simply giggled and nodded back. "And last but not least Miranda, my second in command." Who also thought a nod would suffice, which Eve returned, but here her eyes again lingered longer as if studying her form for some reason. "This is of course not the whole crew, but you've met the key members now."

After a few seconds she seemed to have had enough of studying Miranda and turned to the rest of the group and smiled again. "Well it's certainly a diverse group. I'd offer you to meet my crew, but I don't have one so that goes down the drain."

Miranda picked that up quickly. "Wait that ship of yours has no crew? It's bigger then a heavy cruiser, how do you run it without a couple of hundred crew members."

Before Eve could answer Mordin had run with it. "Implications interesting, must have stunning amounts of automation in systems. Still data flow would too much for one human. Advanced VI support perhaps?"

Eve giggled once more and cut in. "Something like that Mordin. Tell you what, I'll answer all your questions if you get me answers to mine."

Mordin nodded. "Reasonable proposition, equal information exchange."

Shepard agreed. "Fair enough, what do you want to know."

Eve smiled sweetly and answered. "Everything, give me access to your database. I'll answer your questions while my link answers mine."

Again Miranda was the first to respond. "I don't know if that's wise Shepard."

Mordin's thoughts immediately linked both facts together though. "Neural computer link, no crew on ship. Makes sense, link pilot directly to ship. Large increase in data process capability and highly improved reaction times. Technology for that highly advanced, beyond our current scope. Suggests permanent implants too as well as high degree of mental discipline."

Shepard took a moment to consider it. There was so much they could learn from her, as her technology had apparently developed without the use of mass effect cores, and so far she seemed friendly and cooperative. On the other hand her advanced technology could mean she would be highly dangerous should she ever become hostile. "Alright, EDI give her standard access. Alert me is she request any other access or attempts to access classified files."

"As you wish." Was the only reply.

Eve closed her eyes for a second, smiled and focused back on the group. "Very well, what do you wish to know?"

"Well let's start with where did you come from and what are your people like?" Shepard replied.

"Well the system I just jumped out of was called Renyn in a region of space we call Essence, though I doubt that means much to you. We call our part the galaxy New Eden which is divided between 5 empires and numerous other smaller faction and spans a couple of thousands of systems. I'll give you a quick run through of all five. The five empires consist of the Gallente Federation, from which I originated, the only real democracy in our region of space. The Caldari State, a ruthless meritocracy run by a few mega corporations. The Amarr Empire, the largest and oldest of all the empires. They are ruled by an Empress that governs a religious caste system. The Minmatar republic, a tribal society since they managed to secure their independence from the Amarr empire a few centuries ago. Then last, but definitely not least the enigmatic Jove. They are the smallest empire, but technologically advanced beyond imagining. They make my ship look like it came from the stone age. But their downfall came from the very genetic enhancements that made them so advanced. They accidentally created a genetic disease that, for all their technology, they have been unable to cure and it's been slowly killing them ever since."

She seemed to consider something briefly and then continued on. "I am however no longer a part of any of the empires. I am what is called a capsuleer. A select breed of pilots numbering only a few hundred thousand among the trillions that inhabit New Eden. We are sometimes referred to as a nation unto our own, simply due to the power and wealth we wield. As you already know, our ships require no crew, we plug ourselves directly into our ships and interface on a level unobtainable without extreme levels of implantation as well as AI support. We require no fuel, no sleep, no ammo and barely any food. Due to this the abilities of a standard capsuleer vessel easily outclasses that of its normally crewed counterpart. This in turn has led us to also to war. For ourselves, for others and simply just for money. The average capsuleer is killing machine both in space and on the ground that, where I come from at least, has no match." Grunt slightly laughed at the notion. "The main reason for that is our rather extreme level of augmentation." She looked at Shepard specifically for this. "You have cybernetic enhancements yourself, but they pale in comparison to mine. This body is not as frail as it might seem." For now she purposefully left out her immortality. That was something she would keep for when it was needed.

The others stayed silent, probably processing what she had said. Eve just kept on smiling. "For now I must admit I find this element zero fascinating, hell the entire idea of mass changing. It's also explained the weird readings I've been getting from the aft of this ship and from her." She pointed Miranda. "Biotics I assume. And then there are the Mass relay's. It's so familiar and at the same time so unlike how we travel space."

"So how do you travel through space?" Shepard asked.

"I'm sure the good doctor will ask for more details later, but simplistically seen we have two main ways of travel. The first we use mostly for intersystem travel and we call warp drive. The warp drive creates a depleted vacuum by repeatedly 'compressing' vacuum between two polar discs, draining all energy neutrons and quarks out of it. A laser-locked field is then created to hold the ever-increasing depleted vacuum bubble until it has enveloped the whole ship. When that happens the ship is able to enter FTL speed. We use this mainly for intersystem travel, though in theory it could be used for travel between systems as well. From what I gather our warp drive is about as fast as your standard ftl speeds are. Our main mode of transport between systems would be via what we call Stargates. These gates are pretty much like the mass relay network in that they allow for instantaneous travel between systems, bar for the fact that they work via a completely different mechanics. Stargates link together as pairs and create a stable wormhole between them. Basically like the one I just came through but then without the collapsing bit. Another major difference is that we built our own gate system and spread it throughout the stars. Any system that has inhabitants is linked to the network via one or more Stargates."

Again Mordin jumped on the information. "Fascinating, would greatly appreciate additional data on new method of travel. So many new possibilities. Not just new technologies, but applicable combinations as well."

Eve tilted her head to the side lightly and absently noted. "I like you, your fun." She then righted her head and nodded. "Data package transfer in progress. Done, 12.4 zettabytes of data transferred. Keep in mind that this is all pretty standard data. So if you have any problems interpreting it feel free to ask later." She then smiled and looked over at Commander Shepard while Mordin started scanning his omnitool.

"Commander." EDI piped in.

"Yes EDI."

"Eve is requesting further data clearance relating to current mission parameters and updates."

Miranda butted in on hearing that. "I'm pretty sure that can wait till later. There is still a lot of other things she can access first."

"That is incorrect operative Lawson." EDI replied. "In the past few minutes she has been indexing and copying data at the rate of around one yottabyte per minute. All information I have allowed her access to has already been accessed."

Eve's eyes never left Commander Shepards, but her lips had lost the smile. "I came here through a wormhole in search of new experiences and profit. This meeting has been quite entertaining and your data has been extremely interesting. So as far as I'm concerned this is fun, but my main objective will be searching for a way back. So far you have been helpful and I am honorable enough to return the favor. But my main question remains, why are you here? And will you be helpful beyond the point where I can be a use full source of knowledge?"

Shepard again took his time to consider. She seemed friendly but her quick change in attitude had surprised him. Could she be trusted? On the other hand she seemed a potential resource he couldn't ignore. Technology not dependent on mass effect fields, ships piloted by single persons and apparently technologically advanced enough to create their own equivalent to a Mass Relay network. He wasn't sure he wanted to think about how that ship she came with would stack up against an alliance heavy cruiser for firepower, but something told him it wouldn't end well for the cruiser. On the bright side he concluded that she hadn't simply disabled the Normandy and taken what she needed by force. Then again she might not have been sure of his ships combat capabilities. It would be a risk, trusting her, but then again fighting the collectors and the reapers was an even greater one. He decided to do the same thing with her as he had done with Jack and Grunt, trust her until she gave him reason to do otherwise.

"EDI give her access."

He carefully studied Eve's face while she analyzed the new data. It went from smile to frown back to smile and finally to a determent glare as she looked back up at him and nodded. "I agree."

He couldn't help but look a bit surprised. "Agree to what?"

"To what I now know was the inevitable question. I'll help you against the Reapers if you help me find a way home."

He couldn't help but smile. He should have know she would lay the connection. "Agreed then."

She closed her eyes for a moment and said. "Joker in three, two, one."

At that exact moment Joker came over comms. "Uh, commander. That ship out there just vanished."

"Did it cloak like the Normandy?" he replied, while looking at a bright smiling Eve.

"Um, well that too, it's not on any sensors anymore. That's not what worries me though. I mean it actually disappeared. One moment I look out the window and it's there and the next its gone. I'm afraid I'll bump into it by accident."

Shepard could only look at Eve in hopes of an answer, who started making her way out the room as she simply said. "Don't worry, it's still there Commander. I've locked my ship in a course around 500 meters off yours. It will keep that range no matter what so feel free to move Joker." And with that the door closed behind her.


	3. First Impressions

**Diclaimer**: EVE Online is owned by CCP and Mass Effect by Bioware, I claim ownership of nothing except the storyline.

Well third chapter is live. Not much to say here besides i hope you enjoy it. As always if anyone has any questions or comments feel free put them forward.

**First imperssions**

Shepard had apparently called an end to the meeting shortly after she left for she noted a large amount of people in the elevator through her link. She had chosen to maintain her link to EDI, she had found it comfortable in the absence of a direct link to her ship, and for her part EDI had allowed it. She found EDI an interesting entity. Where she came from no true AI like this had been invented yet. Highly sophisticated programs yes, Rogue Drones for example could be seen as intelligent, but none were truly self aware. Even her on board Aura was not a true AI. Being able to exchange data with someone who could think as fast as she could was somehow comforting. It also allowed her to analyze more of the data she had copied from the Normandy's database. She had indexed it all, but hadn't analyzed most of it. Beyond that she hadn't even started on the extranet yet, but did make sure to copy the access protocols and frequency.

The trade had been acceptable though. She had already theorized that any data she was releasing about her technology would be useless without the proper materials and further details that she had not given out. Going just of what she had given Mordin it would still be several decades until they would able to develop a working stargate on their own. Besides, she had taken certain extra precautions on that end as well. On her end however she had gained data that would be invaluable to her survival in this galaxy and hopefully find either a way back, or at the very least carve out nice piece of it to live in. She would help Shepard though, for now anyway. He was a use full conduit of knowledge and she did not want more people finding out she was here yet. That, after all, could get complicated fast.

In the end she had admit that the threat of the Collectors did relatively little to her, the Reapers slightly more. But somewhere in her head or heart one tiny voice was still calling out for Gallente freedom, told her she should care. For now she would admit that a galaxy cleansed of all organic life by advanced super machines did not seem quite in line with her current goals. Then again the Reapers had never met a capsuleer.

"_Such glum thoughts"_

Her first stop would be on the crew deck, the port observation room as it was designated. The room was designated as being assigned by Kasumi Goto, file classified, though at the moment she was apparently elsewhere. She didn't quite care either way as long as what it said on the map was true. There should be a bar there and she could definitely use a drink. Absently she noted the Normandy jump to ftl speed and quickly checked to find her ship was keeping up quite nicely. As she entered she noted several surveillance devices similar to the ones she had found in the elevator. She queried EDI, but she would not forward anymore data.

"_Odd."_

She quickly analyzed the microphones, sensors and camera's and deduced that she would be able to scramble them at will. Not something she needed to pay further attention to then, though she did make a mental note to further research Cerberus when time allowed it.

As she walked to the bar she noted something felt wrong. Capsuleers were not only the best because they had implants and wealth, they spent years even decades in full scale war. Experience few mortals in warfare could even come close to matching. You learnt to tell fakes and traps from mistakes and brute force, and to tell when you were being spied upon. She was not as alone in this bar as EDI believed. She walked behind the bar and started to pour a drink, while thoroughly scanning the room with her ocular implant without looking suspicious. There, the couch. Electromagnetic readings, faint, but good enough. Cross reference with the amount of personnel that was accounted for by EDI, only one name came up.

"Would you care for a drink as well Miss Goto or are you simply claiming the couch?" keeping her face as neutral as possible while continuing to pore her drink.

A blink of light and Kasumi appeared on the couch with a slightly surprised look. "Ooh you're good and I'm not sure you want to drink that."

Eve meanwhile had poured herself something, well she didn't really know what it was, but it was blue and considerably stronger than most things she had found here. "I'm not sure what it is, but I'll be fine."

Kasumi shrugged, but maintained a smirk. "Suit yourself, I'll take a glass of wine thank you."

Eve slipped her face into its natural smile again and poured Kasumi a glass of wine. Picking up both glasses she headed for the couch and handed Kasumi her drink as she sat down.

"So, do you always spy on your own room?"

Kasumi smiled and returned in kind. "Only when people come in to raid my bar uninvited." She extended her hand at that. "Kasumi Goto, though I gathered you already knew that."

Eve smiled back as she shook it. "You can call me Eve and I'm pretty sure you knew that already as well. Nice view you've got here."

"It's relaxing enough and that's something we can all definitely use on this mission." She giggled and turned back from looking out the viewport. "So you're the latest addition to our illustrious team I assume. Though with a lot more baggage then the usual crazy people Shepard recruits."

Eve shrugged. "You could say that and you do realize you just called yourself crazy."

Kasumi laughed a bit before answering. "We're on a suicide mission to kill a race of aliens with technology advanced beyond our own with only one frigate, and maybe one cruiser now, and all of us signed on voluntarily. I'd say everyone here qualifies as crazy and that includes both of us."

Eve couldn't help but laugh at that. "I suppose, though we'll see how long my deal with Shepard lasts."

Kasumi giggled a bit while focusing on the view again. "Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. Shepard has a funny way of binding people to him, especially the ones you least expect it from."

She pondered that for a bit. She had met hundreds of ship captains and army commanders in her not too short a lifespan. Some would simply rely on their position of commander to give orders. A few however managed to bind their crews to them. Create a bond of loyalty that made them follow the commander into hell itself if asked. Those were always the best. Kasumi seemed to imply that Shepard was the latter, which would confirm her profile of him so far. Quick searching had found the Lazarus files and while most of it was restricted she could gain the project profile. Shepard had died, which she assumed would be somewhat traumatic for a mortal, and had then been brought back to life. Costs, apparently, be damned.

If he was worth that much to an organization with as limited a resources as Cerberus, he and they might warrant further caution and study. She took a sip from her drink and idly wondered how many strings he was attached to.

"I can't believe you just actually drank that. Are you ok?"

Eve blinked and refocused on Kasumi. "Why would I not be?" To be safe she ran a full diagnostic, but apart from the drink needing more filtering than usual and containing trace amounts of metal and for some reason radiation she found nothing wrong. It had already been isolated and too be honest the taste was quite good. Unlike most things this actually packed enough of a punch to make her throat tingle.

Kasumi cocked her head sideways as if to confirm she truly was alright. "You probably don't want an answer to that question. Come see me tomorrow when the hangover hits."

She took a look at her drink again and couldn't help but giggle. "You know I can look up what this is in a second. But I'll let you have one secret for me in return of one of my own." She downed the entire glass while Kasumi stared at it, eyes going wide. "I don't get hangovers."

She was busy pouring another drink when Shepard came over ship wide comms. Apparently the Collectors were currently attacking a colony named Horizon and they were en route to assist. ETA only 3 hours. Enough time for the expected to happen. She did not even bother to look up from her drink when the door opened, she knew who entered. The laugh earlier had given enough away, combined with his race's history and relative youth it was to be expected. She was more curious who had come to watch.

"So you're the best your empire has to offer in combat, don't make me laugh." The voice rumbled. "Inside that ship of yours you may be a pilot, but on foot your nothing." She sighed, expected but still annoying. There would be only one way to deal with him. Well three really, but only one left him alive and her not irritated. She got up, downed her drink again and simply said. "Excuse me Kasumi. You, follow me." He just looked slightly stumped as she walked past him. Apparently not what he had expected, good that would make this easier. She walked into the elevator and tapped her foot as she waited for him to enter, all the while she was analyzing any and all information on Krogan she could get her mind on. "Well come on, I don't have all day."

He stomped into the elevator, but looked at her angry. "What's this about new blood?" She leaned back against the wall of the elevator as she pushed the button for the shuttle bay. "I know what you want Grunt. I'm just cutting the big talk and intimidation part and skipping to the proving part." The doors opened again and she walked out. "Now pick your weapons." He finally got the hint and grunted an approval as he pound his fists together. "I need no weapons to crush you." Idly she noted Garrus and two others standing in the corner, an older human male and a young tattooed woman. She queried EDI and came up with the names Zaeed Massani and Jack. Whether they were invited or just saw this coming as well she didn't know. "Hand to hand it is." She placed herself on the deck between the wall and the shuttle and turned around. "Well then, this is your chance, Vorcha."

She knew the name would enrage him, would make him fight without reason. He let out a battle cry and charged giving her an estimated 3.4 second to analyze. He would be stronger then her, even with her upgrades she judged she would not match a Krogan blow for blow. She had speed and agility on her side though, that and a rational mind and a thorough understanding of Krogan physiology. She rolled to the right dodging his charge and came to stand against the sidewall. He slipped to a standstill, but to his credit didn't hesitate and came at her again. Punch, sidestepped hitting the wall and denting it behind her. Left jab, sidestep the other way, another dent in the wall. More anger from Grunt, unfocused, sloppy. He tries crushing her with both fists, while she's pinned to the wall. Understandable, but useless. She ducks underneath and jumps when he steps back to regain balance. Using his own knee as jump of point she vaults overhead, but lands not on the other side, but the top of his armor. He wobbles a bit but maintains balance. He cries again and attempts to grab her by reaching up with both hands. She steps back of his ridge in front of him while he is still reaching above. Three quick jabs leave dents in his frontal plating and enrage him further. Then duck underneath his blind jab while sidestepping left and behind him. A quick kick to the back of the knee he is attempting to pivot on to face her and he loses balance and falls forward. Instinctively he leans back to salvage his fall and stay upright. Eve makes full use of this and grabs the front ridge of Grunts armor and pulls back. Unprepared he falls fully backwards onto his back.

Enraged Grunt looks back up at Eve, who's staring down at him coolly. "Your tough, but predictable. Strong, but too wild. By all accounts you should have beaten me hand to hand and yet you failed. Your blood rage is at the same time your greatest asset and your greatest weakness. It lets you ignore pain and fight with strength, but it clouds your judgment." She leans a bit close to make sure her point comes across. "I don't need to hurt you, in order to kill you. Learn to focus that anger of yours, or it will get you killed soon."

With that she walks off towards the elevator and nods to the three man crowd watching from the sidelines, as Grunt gets back up behind her. He was apparently not pleased with that being the last word between them as she turns at the sound of another battle cry. No blind charge this time though, as he walks towards her at a quick pace, never taking his eyes of her.

"_Good, he's learning."_

She backs up two more steps until she is around a meter before the elevator doors. One last lesson for today though, never underestimate your opponent. He pulls back preparing for a blow as she locks her right leg in a 45 degree angle against the wall, locking up her ankle, knee and hip joint in the process. In the half a second it took for Grunt to shift his weight and move the mighty punch forward she had calculated its path and had her own hand on an appropriate intercept trajectory. Fully extended she had her arm in his punch's path .1 of a second before it hit, giving her enough time to also lock her shoulder, elbow and wrist joint into position. Grunt was fully into his punch now, shifting all his weight forward he hit her hand dead on. Eve felt the nanolaced and tritanium infused bones in her joints crack and damage reports noted micro fractures in all major joints. Nanobots were immediately released and started repairs, but she kept her focus on Grunt and his quite surprised look. For all he could see was that she had just taken his punch head on and he felt like he had hit a 2 meter thick steel wall. Eve unlocked her joints when she saw no follow up blow was coming and stood upright. Briefly feeling the dent in the floor and wall where the kinetic energy of his punch had bled out of her body.

His eyes never left her as she punched the elevator button and stepped in. "Never underestimate you're opponent, they may not be what they seem." With that the elevator closed and moved up to the CIC. Admittedly that had been more of a challenge then she had from a mortal in well over a decade. With this over he might learn and if he survived she theorized he would become quite the warrior. For now she started pulling data on whatever these Collectors were, the more info the better after all.

Shepard came to the conclusion that they could have probably better held this meeting in the comm. room, provided there had been seats there. Even with only Miranda, Kelly and himself here, his quarters seemed quite crowded. The topic at hand was of course their new arrival.

"I still have concerns about trusting her. Like Grunt and Jack she's a complete unknown, with the notable exception that she has her own goddamn cruiser." Miranda started.

"Noted, Lawson. She's too valuable a resource to let go though. If even half of what she says is correct then we need her. We need any advantage we can get against the Reapers. So far she has been courteous and seemingly even happy with our exchange of information and has done nothing to provoke any suspicion. So she's to be treated and trusted just as much as any other member of the crew." Shepard took a moment to look all the people here in the eyes before he continued on. "That being said I would like to know the rest of your opinions on her. Any more information about her can be helpful."

"I can supply the deep scans that were performed when she entered the ship via the quarantine chamber." EDI piped up. "They reveal something remarkable."

"Show us EDI." Shepard answered.

"For baseline comparison, this is a deep scan of the commanders body. Which is highly augmented by our standards. Your body mass is made up of around 7% cybernetics, together with the standard genetic modifications you received as part of your military career." Shepard had seen a scan of his body before, the only major implants were around his frontal lobe and the base of his spine. Some more small implants were around key places in his body, but they were nothing more than simple augments of his body's natural abilities.

"This is what the scanner revealed about Eve's body." For a moment everyone just sat stunned in silence.

"That can't be right." Miranda sputtered out.

"I assure you my scans are accurate." EDI replied.

Shepard had to admit that it was hard to believe. Compared to Eve, his modifications were as simplistic as they came. Her scan showed implants everywhere, from her bones to muscles all the way to her brain. He could see more implants in the scan then he could see actual human tissue.

"The scans show over 68% of her body mass is cybernetic and there are several signs that what remains has seen substantial genetic modifications. The organic tissue that is there appears to largely match the known human genome though" EDI continued on. "Most surprisingly, is the scan of her brain. The scan is not full medical grade so I cannot judge brain patterns or implant composition, but from what I can gather her entire Hippocampus, Thalamus and brainstem are cybernetic. The remaining part is also laced into several other implants around and below her brain and only one of her eyes is organic. Again I cannot judge the composition or true function of the remaining implants, but her bones seem either metal fused or coated in some way. All her joints have implants around them that are giving off significant power signatures suggesting some kind of servo's to increase strength or mobility. There are numerous other implants and augments that are also giving of power signatures, the function of most of them I cannot ascertain."

"Her brain scan certainly makes sense with how I would profile her so far." Kelly spoke up. "If I didn't know any better I'd almost diagnose her a schizophrenic." Kelly tapped some commands on the holographic interface and a video feed of the conversation in the comm. room popped up. "Look at her from when she came in. She looks as happy and curious as a child and despite the amount of information she's apparently digesting and comprehending. Her first instinct when meeting Mordin is to giggle at his language and later on say that he's fun and that she likes him." She taps a few more commands. "Now look at her face right before she asked you for full access. She looks the same smiling happy person, but then look at her face when EDI informs you of the access request." She taps another command and the video starts to play. "Her eyes never leave your face and in about a second her face and her entire attitude went from bubbly to completely serious and in control. It's like you were talking to a completely different person there. Now I'm not sure how her personality would operate with that many implants, but her reactions make no sense when put together. As far as I can now gather she is stranded here without a way back, being happy doesn't seem like a normal reaction. However she seems in no way concerned about it and only turned serious when she questioned your reliability. All in all she's an enigma and I wouldn't put much faith in my own predictions of how she would behave in any situation."

Shepard just nodded as he thought it all through when EDI come over the comm. again. "Shepard I have some additional information that may be relevant."

"By all means EDI."

"Several minutes ago Grunt approached Eve and questioned her abilities as a combatant. Apparently he does not believe what she told us. She apparently took this as a challenge and has arranged a sparring match. I can route the footage to the screen if you wish."

Shepard nodded. "Let's see it."

Before the screen went up he could hear Kelly quietly mouth "I hope Grunt doesn't accidentally break her arm or something." Somehow Shepard doubted that would be a problem. The screen materialized and began playing the fight between Eve and Grunt. Only when Eve finally took Grunts blow head on did someone finally speak up again. "Pause there EDI, you said something about broken bones Kelly?"

Kelly chuckled. "Evidently I was wrong. I can't believe she just took a hit like that and walked away."

Miranda agreed. "Well she certainly didn't lie about her combat abilities. But that only makes her more dangerous if she becomes hostile."

Shepard sighed. "At some point your going to have to start trusting someone Miranda. For now let's focus on Horizon and the Collectors. She can stay here for this mission, it's too important. I want you, Garrus, Zaeed and Grunt ready to go the moment we hit the system. We'll see how everything else goes after that. Dismissed."


	4. Horizon Redux

**Diclaimer**: EVE Online is owned by CCP and Mass Effect by Bioware, I claim ownership of nothing except the storyline.

Well first chapter with some actual combat. Was quite a joy to write although i have no idea if i'm good at it yet. Time will tell i suppose. For those hoping for a completely overpowered capsuleer will go home slightly dissappointed though. Eve is by no means a pushover and technically the EVE universe is much more advanced then the ME one, but she still can't ignore the laws of physics. Though i think i'm making a good effort at bending them considering the genre.

Besides that i hope you all enjoy it and as always any reviews, comments and questions are welcomed. Quite interested to hear if people like combat chapters written like this.

**Horizon Redux**

Eve was bored.

After moving back to her own ship when they hit the system she had been idling in her pod as her Legion class cruiser floated in low orbit next to the Normandy. She was analyzing the telemetry she was getting from the Collecter vessel and so far the information had been interesting, but hardly groundbreaking. She had run a brief tactical analysis on the ship and from what she could tell she would probably win in a head on encounter, but the problem lay with the probably. She was immortal only so long as her ship stayed intact and that was not something she was willing to risk on a whim. The energy weapon that it boasted was quite powerful and two or three direct hits could penetrate her armor. She theorized that she would be able to dodge it, but that was too big an if. A few colonists weren't enough of a concern to risk her immortality.

However that being said, with the information she now had, helping Shepard fight the Collectors and moreover the Reapers was simple self preservation. Her Legion was strong but it would not stand up against a Reaper ship like Sovereign. Even if it did without some help it would take her far longer to find any way home, if there even was any. She had learned long ago that having friends paid off, even if those friends were now just mortals.

So for now she floated in her pod analyzing and listening in to Shepard's comm. link. He was making good progress as far as she could tell. The collectors were not an enemy to take lightly, especially not without energized plating, cyclotronic plasma rifles and directed energy weapons. But so far he and his team had dealt with it. She found this Harbinger intriguing though. An AI that controlled organics still came across as a little strange to her. In all honesty she had found the entire idea of the Reapers a bit weird, but now that she had some time to pile through some more data she agreed. The patterns were there and they were definitely coming.

Shepard had finally reached the colonies main transmitter and had patched EDI in. "Normandy, do you copy?"

"Joker here. Signals weak commander, but we got you."

"Time to show we give as good as we get. EDI bring the defense towers online."

"Errors in the calibration software are easily rectified, but it will take time to bring the towers to full power. I recommend a defensive posture. I will not be able to mask the increased generator output."

"When the collectors figure out what we're doing we'll have a fight on our hands."

"We'll hold this position and keep them away from the transmitter. Easy enough."

"Maybe not. Enemy reinforcements closing in, I suggest you ready weapons."

And boy if EDI wasn't kidding. Eve counted several squadrons of Collector drones closing in on Shepards location. Plus one high energy signature that she didn't recognize had just left the ship and was closing fast. She had to admit that with the gear he had, Shepard was good. He and his squad had torn through several Collector squads already, but this looked like too much. She was eager to see what Shepard would do. He had his team dug in cover around the transmitter on all four sides with Garrus in the center providing long range support. The first wave that hit were simple husks and they were being mowed down easily enough, but it was costing them thermal clips. As the actual collector drones started to land Eve deduced that they would run out of clips before the enemy would run out of troops. Quickly she checked in with EDI and also learned that it would take fifteen minutes to get the towers online, down there fifteen minutes would be an eternity. Quickly she clone jumped to her ground clone and started the process of armoring up. They were going to need her help.

This wasn't looking good.

He must have killed at least two dozen Collectors alone already and still they kept coming. He had only 20 clips left for his assault rifle and his sniper rifle was empty already. Time to switch to the shotgun. Only that would allow the Collectors even closer. He raked his brain for other options, but none left the colony defended. Then again dying here would achieve nothing. His team was putting up a valiant defense, better than he had hoped, but they were being overwhelmed by sheer numbers. He looked at the timer again, still 9 minutes till the towers would be online. In nine minutes they would be dead. They needed to extract and fight another day.

"Normandy, this is Shepard. We need immediate extraction at my location."

"Locked and away commander, ETA 4 minutes."

Good, they would hold for another four minutes.

"Commander orbital insertion sequence started, ETA 32 seconds."

What? "Eve what the hell are you talking about? And how did you get on this frequency?"

"My comm. will go down in 2 seconds commander, hold your position."

He heard a hiss over comm. and then nothing. "Joker what the hell is going on."

"I don't know commander, but I'm tracking something tiny entering the atmosphere and boy is it fast."

"How tiny?" He answered as he popped from cover and fired the last of his rifle clips at a nearby collector.

"Like one person tiny commander and its heading straight for you. ETA 26 seconds."

Eve better knew what the hell she was doing.

She must have looked like a rocket from the outside.

She was at peak velocity in her descent at the moment and the webbing field was struggling to control her speed. The temperature around her feet had reached a good 1450 degrees and the air around her itself was igniting. She was now only 13 seconds from the landing site as the stasis webifier fired up at full speed and she rocked back and forth in her heavy Gallente armor. If it weren't for her upgrades and the active gel layer in her armor she would have been crushed in the deceleration.

A quick last scan of the landing site and some final adjustments to her course. She powered up the thermal smart bomb on her back and ran a final diagnostic on her CAR-90 pulse rifle. The Amarr laser rifle she had picked for its direct energy capabilities. In theory that should utterly bypass mass effect shielding. The webifier had slowed her enough for all of the fire to dissipate and all that remained was the blue hue of the stasis web.

At only 180 kph she hit the ground and triggered the smart bomb.

Time to get to work.

As the shockwave from Eve's landing washed passed he had to wonder how the hell she could have survived that. The impact alone had killed an entire squad of Collector drones and thrown the crates they had been using for cover everywhere. Shepard was still trying to get an actual visual on anything through the flames when he saw a white light flashing through the smoke.

"Eve?"

"Regroup your squad at the transmitter Commander, I'll cover you."

He called Miranda, Zaeed and Grunt to fall back to Garrus's position when he spotted a figure move through the fire. Standing almost as tall as he did the figure was clad in armor that gleamed in a deep blue color. It was sleek with almost no right angles and few visible cracks and hefted a gun that looked around the same size as his assault rifle, but more resembled a golden artwork. As it fired a white light pulsed through the sky and part of a Collector vaporized.

That shook Shepard out of it and he quickly met up with the rest of his squad.

Eve apparently knew exactly what she was doing.

Eve fired her pulse rifle relentlessly, every shot vaporizing chunks of Collector. The horde was thinning out so nicely that with Shepards squad firing as well she didn't even bother to look for cover. The random stray shots posed no threat to her reinforced heavy armor. That particle beam was another matter entirely though, but then the operator was dealt with easily enough. Even then, released nanobots quickly repaired any damage done to her suit. She was jacked into her armor through her implants in a similar way she would normally interface with her ship. The armor became her skin and powered joints and servo's her muscles. The heavy armor placed very few restrictions on her movements and its integrated sensor suite and orbital uplink allowed her unparalleled battlefield control.

There was one thing her armor was missing though and as her sensor picked up there approach she cursed herself for not asking EDI for the upgrade specifications. Without Mordin's modification to her armor they could see her and boy were they coming for her. As they passed over the last buildings a swarm of hundreds of seekers descended on her attempting in vain to penetrate her armor to sting her. As ineffective as there stings were, they were distorting her sensors, clouding her vision and hindering her movements. In this state she would be useless to fight any collector opposition.

With a tingle in her mind she noted that her smartbomb had finished charging again.

"_Excellent."  
_

Once triggered the Inferno grade smartbomb sent any seekers within a 15 meter radius to a fiery death. Hundreds turned to ash in an instant and only a burnt out circle around her remained. A few remained, some fleeing and some attempting to reengage. She simply ignored them and concentrated on the remaining collector drones, they were no longer worth the effort.

Still she had to hurry, the high energy signature she had tracked from orbit was inbound fast and she wanted to have a clear playing field to tangle with it. With most close range targets gone she switched from multifrequency crystals to scorch and the white light changed to purple as the range on her rifle tripled.

The top half of another collector ceased to exist as she almost mindlessly released another cycle of nanobots from her internal repair systems to top off her armor.

Whatever it was, it was almost here.

Shepard had met up at the transmitter and fired away at the few collector drones that still remained. In only a few minutes Eve had absolutely decimated their numbers. To the point where only a minute after her landing he had called off the Normandy. He had been worried when the seeker drones had swarmed her after she landed, but whatever explosive she had strapped to her suit it had cleared them off without much problems. Meanwhile the Collector drones were hitting her with everything they had, but that armor seemed to just shrug it off. She had definitely not been kidding about her combat capabilities.

"Commander, ready your squad. We've got incoming from the eastern ridge. I'm reading multiple collector drones and one high energy signature. Pattern unknown."

He quickly looked around for the best way to set up his squad when he realized something else, her sensors can cut through the interference. He didn't have much time to think about it though as he could already hear the buzzing of the Collector drones wings in the distance.

"Listen up, we've got something big incoming from the east. Pass around any spare thermal clips and get ready. Garrus take up position on that terrace. Grunt, Zaeed behind that truck. Mow anything down that comes close to Garrus. Miranda take cover over there and cover the left flank, I'll take the right."

Grunt was the only one actually excited by the prospect of more targets, but they all knew to follow orders in combat. As he dug in he took a quick look at Eve who was just standing in the middle of the courtyard after having vaporized half of the last Collector drone around. Her armor still didn't show a scratch as it gleamed in the sun. He was soon pulled out of his thoughts by Garrus though.

"Here they come, I count ten drones and one big…. I don't know what that is, trailing behind."

"Watch your cover people. We don't know what that thing can do." Shepard added before focusing back to the drones. Garrus had lent him some thermal clips for his assault rifle and he would make good use of them. He lined up his rifle and waited for the drones to land.

Eve apparently had other ideas though. Purple streaked across the sky as 3 drones died before they even hit the ground. He had to admire her accuracy as he sprayed some fire on another collector drone. Then he heard the one sentence he wished he hadn't heard all day.

"Assuming direct control!"

One of the drones exploded with energy as Harbinger seized control of its body.

She watched the process curiously and concentrated on taking out the other drones as much as she could before the high energy signature would arrive. The one drone glowed with vanes of energy now as she tagged it with a higher threat marking. The controlled drone seemed to forgo the use of its standard collector rifle as it conjured forth what seemed like a form of biotics. She quickly deduced that her mass with her armor on would be far too high for any standard biotic attack to be very effective and made a snap decision. Instead of dodging she allowed the attack to her he head on, she needed to judge its affects.

The first bolt set her entire suit aflame causing the suits cooling to go into high gear to maintain average temperature. It affected some systems slightly, but her suit was designed for far harsher planetary conditions and was coping as well as usual. Then the second bolt hit and she was launched several feet backwards. Damage reports flooded her mind as nanobots were released en masse to repair the damage. Her frontal plating now featured a large crack that almost made it to the gel layer. The impact itself had managed trigger the high gravity settings in her suit as all servos fired up full blast to counter the gravitational force that the floating orb had unleashed on her. She took half a second to complete the damage report and she noted micro fractures all around her armor, several systems were on the verge of overload and the smartbomb had been damaged beyond repair. The wave of released nanobots was quickly repairing her armor and some redistributing off power managed the overloaded systems. She would survive, but made a mental note not to get hit by that again.

As she opened fire on the possessed drone she ran a quick analysis on the attack and had to admit that it was ingenious. The first blast would set the average person on fire, hurting him and making him disorientated allowing the second blast to hit. The floating orb that followed seemed to be a miniature black hole only several micrometers across and unstable in its form, which would explain its slower speed. Upon impact the containment field collapsed releasing the mini black hole which instantly imploded all matter around it, only to then quickly explode as critical mass was reached. The resulting gravitational shift would do more damage, the bigger the target it hit as there was more mass to throw around.

Definitely not your standard biotic attack.

Her repair systems were still cycling when her third shot breached the controlled drones energized armor and completely incinerated the drone. She quickly scanned for more targets, but Shepards team seemed to have taken the rest out. Her armor read 70% overall with her frontal plating down to 40%, but coming up fast. Capacitor level was down to 50% but holding steady as she routed the remaining power from her smartbomb back into the grid.

Then with a ground shaking crash the high energy signature landed.

"Crud."

It didn't look like anything he had seen before, but that didn't stop Shepard from immediately opening fire on it. However his rifle rounds pinged helplessly of the shield. The four legged creature seemed to glare at him for a moment before taking off and hovering towards Eve.

"_Alright, heavy weapon it is."_

He looked over to check on eve for a moment and mentally reeled at what he saw. So her armor isn't indestructible. Eve had to have been hit hard by the Harbinger controlled drone. Her armor entire armor was scorched black and showed a large gash at the front. Did she actually let his fire hit her? Then he noted something else, a green shimmer, and the gash getting smaller? Was Eve repairing her armor on the fly? Was that even possible?

Quickly he shook it off and filed those questions away for later as he reached for the Collector particle beam he picked up earlier.

"_Let's see how they like a taste of their own medicine."_

He popped out of cover again and lined up his shot. The black monsters eyes started glowing and a particle beam shot out towards Eve at the same time he fired his. His beam impacted the creatures shields while the creatures beam found nothing but air. He ducked behind cover again and heard Garrus call out another direct hit of his own. Quickly looking over the battlefield he found where Eve was again. A full 50 meters away towards the other side of the creature.

"How in the hell had she moved that fast."

He didn't have time to think on it though as he saw Grunt charge the floating monster out of the corner of his eye. He motioned for Grunt to move back, but it was too late. The creature landed with a crash and caused an explosion of energy that sent Grunt flying backwards. He opened fire again to distract the creature from Grunt who seemed dazed, but otherwise okay. The creature itself on the other hand didn't seem to need the distraction as it focused all of it attention on Eve, firing its particle beam at her relentlessly. For her part Eve was dodging the beam at a speed he hadn't thought possible in an armored suit that large.

He continued his barrage and Miranda, Zaeed and Garrus joined in with pistol, assault rifle and sniper rifle respectively. Then EDI came on comms.

"Guardian anti ship batteries at 100%. I have control. Targeting Collector vessel."

Finally some good news.

The thunder of the Guardian batteries opening fire almost drowned out the sound of the particle beam that seemed to be following her around. She had her suits servos running on full power in order to dodge the beam. From her readings the beam had at least 4 times the power the handheld Collector particle beam Shepard was wielding and that thing she had already identified as a threat. Now with her armor already damaged she did not feel the need to test out its damage potential. However in a moment she might have no other choice. With both her armor repair systems cycling and her servos running on maximum power she was putting a serious drain on her capacitor, to the point where she was almost capped out. She had managed to get her frontal plating repaired back up to 80% though so it had been worth the energy spent.

"_Good enough."_

She was done running from the Praetorian. While running she had quickly queried EDI, who had run the visual profile she had uploaded through multiple databases and come up with the ID. There were few sightings, but they had been seen before and been dubbed Praetorians. Though the close range attack it had released on Grunt had been new information and use full at that. Charging something he could not defeat twice in the same day though, she had expected better from Grunt. Then again his species was known for being able to survive far harsher punishment. Probably for good reason.

She ended her musings when she rolled out of cover and quickly released two pulse rifle shots at the Praetorian before jumping over a crate and dodging the particle beamed counter. A quick look allowed her to analyze the damage. The Praetorian was far tougher than any other Collector opponent to date. The two shot had passed through its shield as expected but the two scorch marks on the armor made it clear that it would require more rounds then that to take it down.

"_Unless…."_

A quick analysis told her it would be worth the risk. Probability of success over 90% and even if it failed, the Praetorian would be badly damaged. A few more shots to keep it occupied, while she shunted power back into the damaged smartbomb on her back. Within seconds her mind was flooded with warning signals indicating overload and explosive danger. She jumped a few more crates, luring the Praetorian as far away from Shepard as she could before… The final red warning went off in her mind.

Now or never.

At 90% charge she disconnected the smartbomb from her back and in one turn caught it and with all her strength flung it at the following Praetorian. Half a second later she had lined up the shot with her pulse rifle. Barely a foot in front of the Praetorian she hit the smartbomb dead on and the world turned to fire.

"_Beautiful"_

Shepard had no idea what he had watched Eve fling at the creature EDI had identified as a Praetorian, but damn had it made one hell of a bang. Apparently she had decided that her rifle wasn't doing enough damage either, though he wished she had given him a warning. As the Guardian batteries around them still thundered he gathered his squad at the transmitter again and searched the flaming crater to the right for any signs of Eve.

Before he could get a gimps of her the Collector ship decided to take off. The centre of the of the colony erupted in fire as the massive ships engines powered up.

"Their pulling out!"

Garrus yelled as they took cover against the blast wave. All they could do was watch as the ship took off still under Guardian fire and became nothing but a speck in the distance.

"They got all the colonists, no reason to stay." Zaeed grunted as he got back up.

Of course now that mechanic, Delan, he met earlier decides to show up.

"No, don't let them get away!" He heaved as he came to a halt.

What exactly did he expect me to do against a ship like that, Shepard couldn't help but wonder. But he could understand the colonist fear. After Mindoir he could understand it all too well. All of the man's friends and family were likely on there.

"There's nothing we can do. They're gone."

Delan just kept ranting on. "Half the colony is on there. They took Egan and Sam….. and Lilith. Do something."

Shepard wished that he could. They had just barely managed to fight the Collectors off, let alone chase after them. "I didn't want it to end this way. I did what I could."

As per usual Garrus always backed him up. "More than most Shepard." Didn't make him feel that much better, but it helped he supposed.

"Shepard? Wait I know that name." He seemed to think for a second. "Sure, I remember you. You're some type of big alliance hero."

Then he saw someone he had both hoped and feared to see here, Ashley.

"Commander Shepard. Captain of the Normandy. The first human Spectre, Savior of the Citadel." She strolled up, seemingly so casual and put her hand on her hip the same way her remembered. "You're in the presence of a god, Delan. Back from the dead."

Two years ago, he knew there had been feelings there. But there was too much pressure and not enough time back then, not to mention regs, so nothing had happened. Now he wasn't sure, but he knew they had been friends, good friends, at the very least.

"All the good people we lose and you get left behind. Figures." Delan decides to butt in. Shepard still couldn't believe that man was still blaming the alliance for this, though at this point he didn't really care anymore either. "Screw this. I'm done with you Alliance types" And with the Delan simply walks off. Where too, Shepard didn't know and he was hard pressed to care. Ashley on the other hand, it was good to see her again.

"We thought you were dead Commander. We all did."

He couldn't help but smile. "It's good to see you Ash. How've you been?"

It sounded good in his head, she seemed to disagree. "That's it? You show up after two years and act like nothing's happened?"

This conversation did not start as planned.

Eve meanwhile had walked around the crater her homemade bomb had created back towards Shepard. Giving her systems ample time to repair and reset, while analyzing further data on how the Praetorian had reacted to the explosion. Which was to blow into small bits and have to those bits then disintegrate from what she judged was some form of self destruct mechanism.

By the time she made it back to Shepard and his squad her armor was once again fully repaired, though obviously missing a smartbomb charge on her back. He meanwhile had started a talk with another woman. She queried EDI for an ID and came up with Chief Ashely Williams, Alliance Navy. Apparently a former team mate of Shepard and by the looks of things the conversation was not going well. The woman was currently in the middle of a rant about Cerberus. Alliance Navy didn't hold the organization in kind regard either apparently. At the very least that was another piece of information to file away.

She sticked to the back ground and observed in a way only a capsuleer could. Noting every word, every intonation and every detail. Garrus tried to talking to her as well, but it was useless. Eve had already judged that she would not be persuaded in any way. Still Shepard looked sad as she left, they had something. Whether they used to be friends or more, she could not yet judge, but there had been something.

As Shepard called for a shuttle back up she made her presence known again. He simply looked at her and smiled slightly, apparently glad she was still alive. Such a useless notion, thoughas the shuttle approached she did come to one conclusion.

She would have some fun in this universe after all.


	5. Trust Issues

**Diclaimer**: EVE Online is owned by CCP and Mass Effect by Bioware, I claim ownership of nothing except the storyline.

Well i must say this story is going better then i had expected. Over twice the views of my original story in not even a tenth of the time. We're also at 10 reviews, which is much appreciated. In any case, new chapter is up, with alot of character building if i do say so myself. We'll get to more action again later. As always any comment, questions and reviews are welcome.

PS: Dustydevil, stop beating me to the punch. Thats like 2 chapters in a row now :P

**Trust Issues**

Her return to the Normandy had been met with more silence than smiles, but she supposed she could understand that. For all their efforts they had only managed to slightly slow the Collectors and save half a colony. Then again that was more than they had achieved thus far. On the way up Shepard had thanked her for her help, but she had simply shrugged that off. She had done it more for her own reasons than any moral obligation to save his life. After boarding he had quickly moved to the comm. room for what she assumed was a report to the Illusive man.

She had taken the time to dig a little further into anything EDI would let go about Cerberus as well as anything on public file on the extranet. Copying Shepards id code for the connection had been too easy and it did make the searching go a lot quicker. So far she didn't like what she had gotten to know about the organization. They reminded her too much of the Black Eagles except they were government funded. She expected they would use any opportunity she would give them to gain more information out of her. Thankfully she had taken enough precautions so far and she doubted they could outmatch her ability to think ahead.

Miranda had gone straight up to her office as well, catching an elevator with Shepard. Presumably to make her own report to the Illusive man. She could guess as to what would be written about her. Zaeed and Grunt were still offloading and stacking all of their equipment in the lockers. All the while bantering along about the fight and how big a bang her smartbomb had made. From the talk she seemed to have earned their respect, though probably not there trust. Trust was such a complicated thing that mortals relied upon, in truth she found it terribly useless. Everyone did what they thought best for themselves, if that turned out to be working together and following orders then so be it.

As she walked to the elevator she made her helmet collapse back into her armor and set aside most of those thoughts. The Normandy was currently en route to Illium, apparently a major trade hub held by the Asari. She didn't feel like moving back to her own ship again just for the small trip. It would be pointless anyway, Shepard would want to see her the moment he was done with his briefing with the Illusive man. She could use a shower in the mean time though, the gel layer in her armor always made her feel sticky after atmospheric entry. Now where could she safely leave her armor? More importantly where could she borrow some clothes?

Shepard meanwhile was getting more annoyed by the Illusive man every conversation they had. For now he needed the man, but he wouldn't fool himself in trusting him. As long as his intel and resources were use full they would stay aligned, for the most part. He would see what happened afterwards. Surprisingly he had seemed more interested in Eve then the actual save of the colony. In a way he couldn't blame the man for that one, but his suggestion that they keep her body for study if she ever died rubbed him the wrong way. Then again he himself was actually on his way to meet Eve right now. EDI had said she was unavailable at the moment, but he could wait for her in the lounge where Kasumi stayed. She had seemed to have made that her second home.

They needed to have a more in-depth talk about her weapons and armor technology. What she had displayed today on Horizon had been more than he had been expecting from her. That and the fact that her armor had been clean and without a scratch on the way back on the shuttle meant that she was packing tech he had a hard time believing it actually existed. He had understood that she had been advanced, there technology had developed along a different line without Eezo, but this was not just different. It was beyond them in almost every way.

As the door to the lounge hissed open the first thing he noticed was Eve's large armor suite sitting in front of the window. It had folded into itself making it about half its usual size. The next thing he noticed was Kasumi rummaging in the closet beneath the book shelves. Several pieces of clothing strewn about. He was about to say something when she popped out holding up a red t-shirt.

"Ha, found it!" Only to turn and smile at him. "Hey Shep, what's up?"

He had to smile, Kasumi was always in such a good mood. "I was actually looking for Eve, EDI just keeps telling me that she's unavailable at this time."

Kasumi's smile just grew wider. "Oh she'll be around in a minute. Feel free to grab a drink while you wait for her." She called as she dug back into the closet after tossing the t-shirt on the couch.

Shepard shook his head and went for a drink. He figured he'd deserved a pick me up after his conversation with the Illusive man. He watched Kasumi rummage a bit more while he poured his drink, till he had to ask. "Kasumi, what are you actually doing?"

She popped up again this time with a pair of jeans and threw those on the couch as well. "I'm organizing some clothes, what did you think I was doing?"

He laughed as he answered. "Finally picking out a non hooded look?"

Kasumi giggled back and mumbled "Something like that" as she dug back into the closet.

Shepard just shook his head and moved over to where Eve's armor was standing, drink in hand. It looked quite compact now that it had folded in on itself, only barely reaching his hips. The green metal gleamed as if it had just come rolling of the production line, not a sign that only 2 hours ago it had been burnt black and cracked like an egg. On the back of thing he noticed the black and gold rifle that Eve had used, stuck to the armor probably by some form of magnetic clamp system. He kneeled down next to the armor to get a better look at it when he heard the hiss of the door opening. He looked to the side to see who it was, only to quickly look away again.

It was indeed Eve, with a towel slung over her shoulders.

She just wasn't wearing anything below that.

Eve herself on the other hand didn't seem to be bothered a bit. "Hey commander. Kasumi, you find those clothes yet? "

Kasumi still didn't bother digging her head out the closet and just called back. "Yeah, on the couch. Still trying to find you some socks and shoes."

As Eve casually headed for the clothes on the couch, Shepard had stood up and purposefully looked out the window. Only to find Eve laughing at him in the windows reflection. "Commander, your cheeks are going red."

Shepard didn't grace that with a reply as he went to refill his drink, hearing Eve mutter behind him. "Such a prudish universe this."

Kasumi took that moment to pop out of the closet for the last time. "Ha found you some shoes, their even blue."

"Good, walking barefoot is so annoying."

At this point Shepard was just wondering what the hell he had walked in on.

"Well commander I assume you came here to talk with me, not to raid the bar till its dry."

Shepard cleared his throat and turned around as Eve put on her borrowed shoes. "I did actually, Kasumi would you mind giving us a minute."

Kasumi just shrugged and headed for the exit. "Sure, catch you later Eve."

Eve just flopped on the couch and smiled at him. "You know she'll hear everything that's said here anyway right?"

Shepard just shrugged. "Maybe so, but so will Cerberus with the bugs. I do prefer the illusion of privacy though."

Eve just giggled at him. "I suppose. I'll tell you what, I'll make sure nobody hears this conversation if you stop staring at the floor. I am fully dressed now you know."

Shepard just blinked. Then he chuckled as he processed what she had just said. He had no idea if she could do what she had just claimed, but he figured he had nothing to lose and nodded.

Eve closed her eyes for a second and smiled again as she opened them. "Done, all recording devices and scanners have been jammed. I'll leave it like that till were done."

Shepard couldn't help but laugh a bit. "I'm going to have to remember you can do that." Then stood from the bar and sat on the couch with her. "I actually wanted to talk to you about the tech you displayed today. I'll take any edge I can get against the Collectors, but that was more than an edge."

Eve hummed and looked out the window for a bit. "I knew you would ask me about that, but I can't really help you. Not in any time frame you would find acceptable anyway." She stood up and walked to her armor. Picking the golden rifle of the back of her armor with both hands. "You see, my weapons and armor are designed using not only materials and principles your mostly unfamiliar with. You really can't actually use them."

She walked over and handed him the rifle. "Try using it, use both hands."

Shepard took the rifle from her and the moment she let go the rifle hit his lap. He had definitely underestimated the weight. Using both arms he could lift it, but it was anything but easy to handle.

"Huh, didn't actually even think of the weight problem. Still that would probably make it usable for perhaps Grunt I suppose." Eve simply continued on. "Still to get back to my original point, try and fire it."

Was she insane! He had seen firsthand the damage it had done against the Collectors. A shot in here would probably blow out a bulkhead. Still he obliged and stood as he aimed the rifle. It seemed to be designed like any other assault rifle. The exterior design was foreign, but it required the same stand and grip. Then he noticed the first real problem. He was missing a trigger.

Eve meanwhile was watching him with an amused expression on her face. "I see you've figured out the first problem. These weapons are designed with a neural link in mind. You can't use them without it. I don't pull a trigger, I simply think about hitting a target. That means I can control the weapon without actually touching it." Suddenly he heard a whine as the rifle activated itself. Heat immediately started radiating from the weapon. So hot he nearly had to let go of the rifle. A second later it turned off again.

"And there's the second reason you can't really use them. There is a reason I stayed away from your squad on the battlefield. The simple heat coming off this thing would fry you in your suit. That was just from activating the startup procedure and I already had to shut it off before it came to standby mode. In actual combat when firing in rapid succession the temperature will easily go up to around three hundred degrees. That's more than your hard suit can actually insulate you against for any extended periods of time. Even I wouldn't fire this myself without any armor or shielding. And don't even get me started on plasma based weaponry. Compared to that this is a popsicle."

She picked up the rifle from him again and put it back in the armor. "Anything bigger then this will also require extra power from my armor, which is something your hard suits can't match. As for the armor itself, I link to that in a way that's similar to my ship. So unless you have these as well, you're not going anywhere with this thing." She pulled the collar of her t-shirt down a bit to reveal one of her metal link implants on her spine.

Shepard leaned back into the couch again, thinking. She was seeing where she was going with this. Her weapons were designed with augmented people like her in mind, they simply wouldn't work for them and in all probability kill them if they so much as tried. Still, something was off. "Couldn't we modify some of your technology to be compatible with ours. I don't know what you used to repair your armor like you did, but something like that could really be an asset."

She nodded and looked out the window again. "Standard repair nanobots, very basic technology where I'm from. I've been considering the same thing though I will admit more for my own purposes. The thing is so far I have yet to find a viable replacement for a few of the raw materials we use for construction. I'll continue to work on it and see if I get anywhere with replacement materials. However for now anything I already have available is not usable by you."

She was lying between her teeth and she knew it. Well she wasn't completely lying, but then she had learned long ago that the best lies were the ones coated in truth. It made it harder to distinguish the difference. Everything she had said so far was true, her weapons would kill the average user and her armor could indeed not be used by un-augmented people. The raw materials she had analyzed so far did indeed prevent mass applications of her current technology, but then she hadn't said that the designs themselves could in all probability be altered to achieve the same effect. The nanobot based repair protocols and hardened shielding technology in particular would be quite applicable in a world of this technology base. However she wasn't about give her technology away so easily.

She might concede if it became truly necessary at some point, but for now it was a simple precaution. For as long as she held the technological advantage she had an edge over the rest of the galaxy and a bargaining chip should she ever need one. At the same time she had begun theorizing ways to merge Mass Effect technology with her own. A Mass Effect core her own ship might be something worth looking into.

In the 2 second silence she had to think this through Shepard had gotten up. "Alright, let me know when you do find something that will work. I'll have Mordin working on the data you sent him. You might want to consider working together, Mordin won't let you down in thinking speed at least."

With that Shepard headed for the door as she got up and looked after him. Mortals, so predictable. He had believed everything she had said. This is why she kept the bubbly exterior, it had fooled more people then she could count. They simply wouldn't believe a girl like her would lie to them. They had all learned in time though, you never underestimate a capsuleer. She stopped jamming the recording devices as the door hissed open. Shepard turned to her before walking through though and smiled.

"By the way, let me know when you actually start trusting me and we'll have this talk again." And with that he simply walked out.

Eve couldn't help but laugh as the door closed again with a hiss. So maybe she had underestimated Shepard. That at least gained him some respect from her. She would need to watch him, Shepard wasn't as gullible as he let on.

Ah well, only 2 hours till Illium. Now what would she take down and maybe more importantly where could she park her ship?

Miranda had locked her office doors and waited in her seat for her terminal to connect to the Illusive Man. She had sent him a brief report about Eve's recorded combat abilities while on the shuttle and she was sure he would have asked Shepard about it. But when it came to accurate intel he would always defer to her. Her screen blinked into action and the Illusive Man's face appeared.

"Miss Lawson."

"Illusive Man."

He took another swig of his cigarette before continuing. "I read your report on the newest crew member. She seems a valuable asset, her knowledge probably even more so."

Miranda agreed on that part at least. "Agreed. She displayed technology far beyond what we currently have available. I will attempt to document as much as I can from her and send it to you. Though we might difficulty with this."

The Illusive Man just kept up his stare. "Explain."

"I don't trust her, but we need her and that feeling seems to be mutual. She has not let anything go about her technology so far that I can access."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but she provided Mordin with information on their space travel capabilities."

Miranda nodded at that. "That's true but so far I've been unable to access any of it. She has encrypted the information in a way I don't fully understand. The program itself seems aware of who is reading it and is scrambling its output accordingly. EDI is working on decoding it, but so far no luck. It might take decades to crack an encryption like this, we have absolutely no leads on where to start."

"Very well, keep working on it anyway. She'll release some information eventually."

"I'm not sure sir. Just now Shepard went to have a conversation with Eve about her technology. For the duration of the conversation Eve managed to jam all recording devices that would have picked anything up from the room. Despite EDI's best efforts to maintain standard surveillance all we have is static."

He took another swig of his cigarette before replying. "Interesting, this just proves how far her technology is ahead of us and that we need to get our hands on as much of it as we can. If she distrusts us, gain her trust. Use any way you see fit to obtain as much of her technology for analysis as you can. This is an opportunity we can't afford to lose."

He nodded once to himself. "That will be all Lawson."

Miranda leaned back in her chair as the view screen cut off. She would keep a close eye on Eve, but silently wondered how she would outsmart a woman as intelligent as she seemed to be.

In the end Eve had kept her ship parked cloaked in geosynchronous orbit and went down on the Normandy. Her legion would attract too much attention and she had no reason to attract it. As for what she had brought down, she had sticked to the basics. The moment they had entered system she had quickly moved a few things over from her own ship. The heavy armor and pulse rifle she had taken back and stored in the docking hanger. Then she had taken some lighter weapons and a stripped down light Caldari recon armor with her. It actually looked like something that could have been made in this galaxy and had shields like the rest of the armors around here. They of course worked off vastly different principles but the visual effect was similar enough.

She had stripped it down a bit though, so she wouldn't stand out in a crowd in full body armor. She only wore the boots and pants of the light grey armor visibly and the red t-shirt she had gotten of Kasumi on top. Beneath the t-shirt she was still wearing a portion of the back section though, which housed the primary power as well as shielding core. But considering their size, it was barely noticeable through the t-shirt. The protection level was of course nothing when compared to her heavy armor, but it was decent enough for this technology base and better then not wearing any at all. For his part Shepard had raised an eyebrow at her new look, but said nothing of it.

While he was busy talking to an Asari custodian she looked over the rest of the group. Garrus had come as always, he and Shepard seemed to share a deep trust she didn't fully understand. But for better or worse they relied on each other quite a bit. Then Miranda had come, from what she had gathered she and Shepard had some business to take care of on Illium. Then Zaeed was there to finish the squad, the mostly stoic mercenary seemed as uninterested in the conversation as she was. Jack was there as well, but Eve was pretty sure she had just gotten off the ship to find a good bar.

Uninteresting as it was she had listened to the conversation all the same. Apparently an old friend had paid for their docking fees. Liara T'soni, an information broker on this planet. She could be interesting to meet, or at the very least have as a contact. Information was something Eve still wanted a lot more off. Shepard and Miranda talked some more as they moved along, but Eve didn't mind them too much. She was still a bit on guard with all these different species around. It didn't take her long to assimilate new experiences, but her personality was still human. So she understood, that didn't mean she accepted.

But as they neared their destination Eve found something she found even more interesting than an information broker, a trading floor. Stocks rising and falling, newsfeeds everywhere and enough people looking at screens and betting there hard earned money on wild prospects. She could definitely work with this. Liara's office was just around the corner and up the stairs, overlooking the trading floor so she wouldn't be far. Quickly she made a decision.

"Shepard, I'm staying here for a bit. Come get me when you've talked to Dr. T'soni."

He stopped and turned to look at her, a bit of a surprised look in his face. "What are you planning on doing here?"

She smiled and replied. "Just going to look around for a bit. I should be here when you're done. Even then you've got my comm. channel if I wander off commander."

He seemed to consider it for a moment but then shrugged. "All right, just try not to stand out will you."

She giggled and yelled back "Off course not." as she walked to the centre of the trading floor.

Shepard just shook his head and went around the corner with the rest of the squad. Except jack, she had snuck off earlier.

As she reached the trading floor she linked in with her mind as others would do with their omni tools. Siphoning a thousand credits of the Cerberus expense account Shepard had access to was childs play, though making it so EDI didn't notice was a tad harder. Still with that done she setup a false ID and account in seconds and started crunching numbers.

Information was all good and well, but money. Now that was something you could use in any galaxy.


	6. Asari Grace

**Diclaimer**: EVE Online is owned by CCP and Mass Effect by Bioware, I claim ownership of nothing except the storyline.

A new week and a new chapter. This one took some thought, but i had fun with it so i hope any readers do to. Not in any way action laden, but more character building and some setups for the future. I find character building one of the harder things to do when writing but it is very rewarding. Let me know what you guys think and i'll probably catch you all again net week.

**Asari Grace**

All she could see was a whirling of information flows and chains of numbers. Linked together, rising and falling. One thousand credits here, two hundred credits there. Corrupt CEO, stock falling. Contract still valid, buy stock. Hold on selling excess Eldfell-Ashland stock, refinery captured. Two new refineries planned, sell in 3 hours after public new announcement. New IPO on market, pour in credits. Raise price by three points, sell excess and adjust buy orders. Expected food shortage on New Baal colony, invest in local transport corporations. The internal clock ticked over another second and prices updated, starting the dance again. Always stay two steps ahead is the motto the investors here live by, Eve almost snorted at the notion as she bought as much Rosenkov stock as she could. Two steps, such a childish notion of thinking ahead. Thirty seconds later the announcement on their new armor line had hit the extranet, she sold the Rosenkov stock for a 12% profit.

Quietly she took another sip of the orange juice she had been served at her corner table just off the trade floor. Shepard had gone off with Miranda and Zaeed to take care of some personal business over half an hour ago. She didn't expect them back for another hour at least. She hummed and closed her eyes again. Stocks rose and fell and information flows were connected as her mind analyzed it all. Idly one part of her mind wondered when Dr T'soni would figure out what was happening and that it was her. The quicker she found out the higher she would rate her as an information broker. After all, she had left all the clues for a reason.

Liara meanwhile sat in her office analyzing the data Shepard had managed to capture for her. She ignored the first blinking light in the bottom right hand corner of her screen, it could wait. Any information on the Shadow Broker took priority. Ten minutes later a second light flashed and she looked at it annoyed for a second or two before it died out again. She had specifically told Nyxeris to make sure she would not be bothered. As always with the Shadow Broker she would need to move fast for any information to be of use. It wasn't till the third time the warning went off that she decided to check it.

"_By the Goddess."_

Her fingers immediately flew over the console and information flowed through her screen. The stock market was in overdrive and even the Volus bankers were having problems keeping track of the money flow. Money flows changed by the second and stocks were rising and falling at a rate that was unheard off. She dug deeper and linked to some contacts. The change was subtle, but it was creating a ripple effect through the entire system. Someone or something was pulling off transactions she couldn't believe. But that didn't seem right, the rate at which the money flows were changing was unheard off. It couldn't be just one person, but it seemed to well organized to be a group of persons. A sophisticated VI then, perhaps even a rogue AI. The chance of that was remote she had to admit but not something she should rule out. Digging a bit further she noticed the money was flowing through certain accounts more than others, as if to wipe it clean and lose a trace. All the accounts were owned by different people, no doubt aliases and shell companies. However one oddity did spring out, the address listed on all of them was that of a small café down stairs. That seemed like too much of a coincidence, but still she didn't have enough data. She doubted very much whoever was doing this would be foolish enough to broadcast there location as easy as that. However the money had to end up somewhere at some point though, but she had trouble figuring out where. Then it hit her.

Moving away from the money flows she started tracking the location of the orders. Where was the person who was doing this located. This took her another ten minutes of searching and a few calls, but she got a location. Right outside of her office. The orders were originating from wireless network hub in the small café just off the trading floor and no more than 40 meters away from her. The same one all the addresses pointed to. She stood up to take a look, but then hesitated. This was too much of a coincidence. The person behind this couldn't have been dumb, they probably knew someone would come looking for this. Still, she needed to see for her own eyes.

Quickly she grabbed a pistol and concealed it in her dress and headed down. Illium wasn't Omega and had a decent police force, but neither was it free of crime. She did note that technically nothing that had been done was actually a crime, it was simply highly unusual. Unless it truly was a VI or even AI doing this, that would definitely count as illegal. As she turned the corner she decided to simply catch a table at the café and order a drink like she was just another patron. This wouldn't seem out the ordinary and allow her to scan the café for any unusual activity. She quickly passed up the three steps up the elevated plateau, only to be stopped dead by a voice coming from the table in the left hand corner.

"Dr' T'soni, have a seat. You were quicker than I expected so the Earl Grey tea isn't here yet."

Liara looked over to find a young, blue haired girl with slightly odd clothing smiling at her. The red t-shirt not really matching the oddly shaped grey combat trousers she wore. Still she could see that despite her age and her apparent happy demeanor she carried herself with a confidence that belied her small stature. This was someone who knew exactly what she was doing and thus not to be taken lightly. But Liara had learned to play this game as well.

"That's ok, it will give us some time to talk miss…."

The girls smile just broadened as she replied. "Eve, you can call me Eve. I'm sorry about all the hassle on the markets, but this way I could catch two birds with one stone as they say."

As Liara sat down she realized this was either a trap or a very elaborate way to simply have a chat with her. Then again she was here now and Eve, if nothing else, had peaked her curiosity. "Yes, you seem to have caused quite a stir with your market program."

Eve raised one eyebrow as she looked back at Liara and she immediately realized she had made her first mistake. One-null for Eve she mentally noted. "That was no market program Dr T'soni. I see you came here early not because you found all the clues, but chose premature action. Still a willingness to take action even when not all the facts are known is use full at times. In this case it does leave you with a distinct disadvantage."

Liara was raking her brain for more information on her, but nothing came up about her. Except….

Shepard had mentioned a new crewmate in passing that didn't quite fit the normal profile, but did seem to fit with her. Female, apparently young and more intelligent than any human he had met before. More pieces started to fall into place. He had mention she was from far away, her foreign clothes and appearance attested that. The odd way she had decided to meet her also meant she knew more then let on, but less then she wanted to. As Shepard had taught her, it was time to take a gamble.

"Perhaps so Eve, however I'm not the only one looking for information in this conversation. Having trouble settling into this part of space?"

Liara took care full note of Eve's eyes while she said that. The past years as an information broker had taught her that facial expression could be controlled, but eyes were where the emotions behind the mask could be seen. Eve's however showed nothing as she giggled at her reply. "Touché Dr T'soni, touché."

One-one she noted down. Her eyes still worried her, the facial expression was one of happiness and on the surface her eyes reflected that. But it was an empty expression. It wasn't quite genuine, but not completely played either. All in all very confusing. At least she now had confirmation this was Shepards new crewmate. Idly she wondered if Shepard knew what she was doing.

The Asari was as bright as she had anticipated. She would definitely be of use if wielded properly. Eve had followed her meeting through Shepards comm. signal in silence and had analyzed it at a slow pace while she was working the markets. Her intel had been accurate and to the point, to top it off she seemed loyal almost to a fault to Shepard. While she didn't trust Shepard much more than any other mortal, he had proved to have competent and capable friends. But as with everyone there was something she wanted as well and that gave Eve something to bargain with. First she would finally need to get to the point though. She was starting to miss the reverence she was always approached with by mortals back in her own universe, it let her dictate the flow of everything much easier.

"Let's stop playing this game shall we. We're both well versed enough in it that it only serves to complicate our talks. I need something and you need something. I think a mutually beneficial arrangement could be made here."

The good doctor seemed to think for a second before she answered. "Well any friend of Shepards is a friend of mine I suppose. What is it you propose?"

"A simple exchange of information. I want anything and everything you know about Mass Effect propulsion systems and wormholes."

The request seemed to confuse her a bit as she raised an eyebrow, but she made no remark one way or the other. "And I would get?"

"I'll help you with a personal quest of your own. Let's just leave it at I have certain talents that wouldn't make it hard to track down the Observer."

Her eyes widened only a fraction of a millimeter, but Eve caught it. She had struck the right cord.

"That seems a rather trivial trade, after the way you decided to contact me."

Well Eve supposed she hadn't become such a prominent information broker in such a short time without being sharp. After all she was right, this was use full, but in the end a simple test to see if she could and would deliver.

"Perhaps, perhaps not. It's true that I doubt our dealings will be done after our current agreement ends. I could use a steady stream of intel and I do believe you could use an assortment of my talents for your own purposes. In any case, you didn't doubt for a moment when I said I could find the Observer for you. That alone was worth the unconventional introduction."

Liara realized she was right the moment the words had left her mouth. She hadn't doubted it, even for a moment. Somehow this human had managed to gain complete control of the Illium stock market within an hour of her arrival. She didn't know how and while she admitted to being curious, she honestly didn't really care either. Needless to say cracking encrypted transmissions would be childsplay for her. On the other hand, what did she have to lose. She would be no closer or further from catching the Observer if she failed than she was now.

Someone with her talents would definitely be use full if used right.

"Alright then. I have designated a number of terminals that contain coded transmissions from the Observer. These should confirm which one of the operatives on the list is the Observer. If you get me the transmissions I will do my best to acquire any of the information you requested."

She handed Eve the datapad on which she had quickly dotted down several locations. "Come see me when you have the results and we can discuss it further."

When she made to stand Eve giggled. "Please, some respect for my talents. Sit down, I'll have the data for you in four seconds."

Liara blinked mid standing up, but sat down as requested when she processed what she had said.

"_Four seconds?"_

Eve smiled as she sat down again and then closed her eyes. Liara couldn't help but count the seconds as she heard nothing but the muted bustle of the trade floor and her own heartbeat. Who was this woman that she could casually crack Shadow Broker files in a café?

As her mental counter hit four Eve opened her eyes again with a frown on her face. That lasted all of about half a second as the frown was replaced with a smile and a small "aahh."

"Downloading the data to your pad. Have a look for yourself."

Liara couldn't help but frown, an expression she had taken over from Shepard, as she looked at the datapad. The data was all there. Short messages, parts of conversations and send and receive locations. But something was off. The messages cleared all of their suspects, they all had other roles to play. Was this an elaborate trick? Was the Observer hiding himself as one of his own operatives?

"Something is wrong. This data clears all of the suspects off my list."

Eve giggling made her look up. "You're missing the point."

Point? What point. This data had just neatly destroyed her suspect list. Over four months of research by her and Nyxeris. All leading round in circles until finally Nyxeris had found a piece of information that gave them this lead.

"Alright I'm spoiling it, you're taking too long."

Liara looked up again, a bit miffed. "Taking too long at what?"

"Look at the data, link them all together. None of your suspects is the Observer, because there all male. The Observer is a female."

She looked again, now instantly seeing the link when it was pointed out. How could she have missed that. Not just now, but all this time. Nyxeris data had been clear….. It clicked.

"Nyxeris."

Eve just smiled again and nodded. "I'll wait here, see you in a bit."

Just as the waiter put down her Earl Grey tea, she got up and as if in a trance walked towards her office. Nyxeris, they were going to have a quick and decisive chat.

She had to admit she liked Liara. So conflicted in emotions, at the same time intelligent and still somehow a bit naïve through it all. Eve had landed the connection the moment she had analyzed the data. It was after all the perfect place for someone like the Observer. Somewhere Liara would have never thought to look and with direct access to any information she might have. The Shadow Broker was clever and his intelligence network seemed far more widespread then Liara's, but from recorded data not always reliable. It might be worth considering helping Liara along further, she would be more…. manageable given the same resources. She dedicated a part of her processing power to further developing this thought as another part of her consciousness noted an increase in Armax stock and subsequently sold it in order to buy more Hahne-Kedar stock.

Everything was working out nicely, for the moment at least. Mortals moved so much slower than capsuleers did, but if there was one thing a capsuleer had in abundance it was patience. After all, she had all the time in the world.

She wondered when Shepard would be done with his business.

Shepard couldn't help but smile as he saw Miranda talk to her sister. It had been close, but they had made it in time to prevent her from being taken. The Eclipse commander and all her forces were dead and sadly so was Niket. He had seen it in Miranda's eyes, she hadn't wanted to pull the trigger so he had stopped her. Only for that Asari bitch to kill him herself. The man had only done what he thought right, nothing more and in the end he still meant something to her. Like him, he knew Miranda never had much of a childhood and this was probably her last remaining good part of it. Still despite all that he watched her smile at Orianna and he remembered why he did what he did. A reminder he very much needed right now.

From the moment Batarian slavers had hit Mindoir his life had been nothing but one long line of fights only linked by the purpose that drove them all. No one else should have to experience that. His life had already been shaped by these events, marked by death and destruction. But these people were free from that. Like Miranda fought to keep her sister safe and isolated from all that. He fought to keep it that way for everyone he could, for as long as he could. It was why he had held on at Elysium. All throughout the fighting, the wounds and fatigue, one thing had kept him going. No one deserved another Mindoir, not while he still drew breath. He knew it was an impossible ideal, peace everywhere, and it sounded as hollow and unrealistic in his mind as it would sound to everyone else. He knew he would never achieve it and that almost everyone would fight it. He also knew that was the one thing that made sure he would never stop fighting them. As impossible as it was, it was too good to let go.

Then the Reapers had shown up and he had realized that his ideal was no longer just an ideal. To fight the Reapers it would become a necessity. All races united and all fleets joined to protect the one thing that did matter. Not money, not power and not anyone's ego, but simply life as they knew it. He had died protecting that idea. Only to be brought back to see that in the two years he had been gone nothing had changed. His message had gone unheard and no one was preparing against the inevitable except a rogue organization he had fought tooth and nail two years ago, and he had moved on. It had only taken him the few hours in a silent shuttle ride to decide that he simply did not care. He did not care that he now had to work with an organization he didn't approve off or with a new team that barely trusted him. That the council was decision less and the Alliance too bound by regulation to react quickly enough. It simply did not matter. He was still breathing, so he would fight. As Saren had said, what seemed like an eon ago: He would fight, even when he knew he could not win.

Perhaps that was what set him apart, made people he had only barely met follow him without question. Or as Garrus had put it, to hell and back if necessary. His team was larger and more diverse than last time and it still wasn't complete, but he knew each of them were the best at what they did. In the end he knew they were all still people though, with their own past and problems. As much as he fought for everyone he didn't know, he fought twice as hard for the people he did. Not because he needed to gain their trust, but simply because they deserved it. Because Jack deserved closure from the Telten facility after what they had done to her there. Because he had seen Jacob cry on the shuttle back to the Normandy after they had found out what his father had done. And because Miranda for the first time he knew her genuinely smiled at a joke her sisters told. Whether they realized it or not, they were worth it.

Thoughts of his team eventually pulled him to their latest addition, if she could be called that. John had met his fair share of strange, confident, crazy, competent and independent people over his career, but she was something else entirely. She packed technology he could hardly believe existed on a ship she could pilot without crew or interface and all by a woman who was as power full, competent and confident as an Asari matriarch, with as much secrets as the Shadow broker. After their talk on the Normandy he knew for sure that she did not trust anyone easily and stayed simply because she needed him as much as he thought they would need her.

But then he would remembered her interaction with Mordin when they first met and how she talked with Kasumi only a few minutes after having met her. No matter her implants and tech or whatever experience with war she had. Whether she denied it or not, as insane as it sounded, somewhere down there she was still a human being. A person stranded in a galaxy she didn't know with no known way back and no familiar people around. She too was worth fighting for, whether she needed it or not.

As for himself, well that was easy.

He was still breathing.


	7. Hide and Seek

**Diclaimer**: EVE Online is owned by CCP and Mass Effect by Bioware, I claim ownership of nothing except the storyline.

A bit late on this chapter as i've been spending time moving house. I think i made up for it in chapter length though as it's easily the longest chapter i've written so far. More action and some actual progress on the ME timeline here, so i hope you guys like it. I've still got plenty ideas on where to go from here, so this story definitly isn't dead. I'll try my best to return to the one chapter a week schedule, but no promises.

**Hide and Seek**

He was at a crossroad and he wasn't sure what to do. After dealing with Miranda's sister and Eve having done whatever Eve does, Liara had come up with more intel. He now knew where he could probably find both the Drell assassin and the Asari Justicar. The problem was, they both needed to be recruited fast. The assassin was going to strike tonight by all accounts and would probably vanish again soon after. While the Justicar's purpose was still unknown, she was causing trouble for the Eclipse at one of the trading ports. They were known to move from one problem to another quickly and acted as a sort of Specters within Asari space. Needless to say it was unlikely that either of them would stay around for long. The only logical conclusion was to split into two team and tackle both at the same time, but who to send with what.

The entire ground team he had brought with him had met up at the transport hub at the back of the Nos Astra port. Garrus, Miranda and Zaeed were joining the discussion on what to do. Eve on the other hand stood just outside the circle looking out over the balcony to the rest of Illium. He was unsure if she was actually listening, or if she even cared what they did first.

"I'll go after the Drell assassin while you tackle the Justicar Shepard."

OK, so she was listening. Eve had turned around and had the rest of the squad looking at her silently.

"What?"

Miranda was the first to respond. "You don't just get to make the call like that Eve. Shepard is in charge and all he did was ask for our opinions."

Eve just shrugged. "Well then keep discussing away. I just ran most possible scenario's in my head and this was the one that had the best outcome. The Justicar is fighting eclipse mercs, which means in all likely hood you will need more firepower and a counter to biotics to get through there. The best counter to biotics is to have your own biotics, which means you will need to go with the team after the Justicar. Zaeed and Garrus for firepower also make sense. While the Justicar will also be the most difficult to convince to join you, so Shepard himself going also makes sense."

She tilted her head sideways slightly and continued on. "The assassin on the other hand will only need to be contacted and paid. Finding him while he is stalking a target might prove difficult, but will not require much firepower. It is also done easier with fewer people, it would attract less attention. Either me or Garrus would be best suited for this task. I simply suggested this because I will be more mobile on my own and am used to working that way. Garrus on the other hand is used to working with you in a team and would thus be better suited to joining you. It is simply the most efficient solution."

Shepard couldn't help but smile at her talk to Miranda. "Well it seems she's got you beat there. I like it, but I'm not sending you after the assassin alone Eve. Garrus, you and Eve go after the assassin while the rest comes with me after the Justicar. Radio if you have any troubles and Eve, remember, your part of this team now as well."

She just nodded as she headed back to the cargo shipping area to talk to Liara's contact there. He wasn't quite sure if leaving her with just Garrus was wise, but it was better than leaving her alone. At least he hoped so.

Having Garrus tag along was not what she had planned on, but she would adapt. In the back of her mind a small part of her was still processing market orders and searching for further information on the shadow broker, while the main part of her consciousness dealt with analyzing a myriad of possible scenarios for her current assignment. First she would need to find Liara's contact Seryna though, she would be able to provide a clearer picture of the situation. They weren't far from the shipping terminal and she made it there while managing to not talk to Garrus. Who for his part didn't seem so inclined to talk to her either.

Seryna was easy to spot behind her desk at the far end of the terminal. According to Liara's information she used to be Nassana Dantius's head of security, who was the assassins target. At the very least she would be able to provide further information as to the Dantius towers interior, at best she would be able to give them a way in. Either would be use full. Walking up to the desk was enough to attract Seryna's attention.

"Who are you two?"

Eve was about to reply when Garrus beat her to the punch. "Garrus Vakarian, we were told you could have more information about an assassin named Thane Krios."

She almost slapped herself on the head when Garrus said that. Did the man have no tact whatsoever. Seryna reacted as Eve knew she would. "Who told you that?"

Eve simply didn't have time for this. She wanted to move in with the information as soon as possible, Seryna was simply a means to an end. She cut in by tossing a credit chit on her desk. "Ten thousand credits said so, now what do you know."

Almost faster then she could see the credit chit disappeared in her pockets as Garrus flexed his mandibles as he looked at her. She still wasn't sure if that meant he disapproved or was surprised. She made a mental note to read up on Turian facial expressions later. Seryna on the other hand was suddenly talkative. "Yeah I know about Thane Krios. I might have given him information on Nassana's security and the layout of the Dantius towers. Don't know much about him beyond that, just that he was going after Nassana, which was good enough for me."

Eve nodded, she had guessed as much. She had been fired suddenly according to Illium records, probably stumbled on something she wasn't supposed to. "Give us the same information you gave Mr. Krios and we'll call it even."

She seemed relieved that was all she asked for, but Eve didn't care. The information would be enough for her to analyze the best routes to the target and the ones the assassin would most likely take. As Seryna handed her a data pad she immediately copied the information and passed the data pad to Garrus.

"Thank you for your time."

Eve didn't bother waiting for a reply and started heading back to the transport hub. They would need a taxi to get to the Dantius towers. Already she was dedicating a significant amount of her consciousness to plotting routes through the towers, but as she turned a corner Garrus stopped her. "Not that I mind you making that talk quick, but shouldn't we at least get you your armor and weapons first?"

With so much of her mind occupied elsewhere it took her a second to process what he said. The moment she did she couldn't help but laugh. As she turned away and kept walking she called back. "I'm a capsuleer Garrus, I'm always armed."

Walking on she couldn't see Garrus shaking his head as he followed her.

"_What had he gotten himself into."_

Garrus had insisted on driving the sky car and she had easily relented. She had no interested in driving a vehicle like this, she could better use her mind for the task at hand. She had already judged that there was an easy route up the second tower which she suspected was what the assassin would take as well. The problem would come at the skyway. It would no doubt be heavily guarded and the layout she had gotten off Seryna was not accurate enough to be able to find across without knowing exactly what kind of defenses they had set up there. The second tower on the other hand was still under construction and would be lightly defended, monitored and thus easily navigated. Despite the skyway to cross, it remained the best chance of circumventing most of the security. Now all she had to do was figure out how to get Garrus to keep up with her.

"So, while I'm busy driving, you find a way into the towers yet?"

Eve couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that. Did he really trust her that readily?

"I have in fact, you want to see for yourself?"

Garrus steered the car around a corner. "Naw, I think I'll trust you with it."

"Are you always this trusting?"

"Only with people Shepard recruits."

What was that supposed to mean. Did he really trust Shepard that much? Garrus looked over to see her still with a raised eyebrow. Only to chuckle as he answered.

"You'll figure it out sooner or later, trust me."

She wasn't sure what to make of that, but for now his apparently blind trust would be use full. If that meant he would simply follow along with the plan she had come up with.

After a brief silence she opened a holographic map and filled him in. "I'll go up the second tower that's still under construction. It's the least secured way up and the one the assassin is most likely to take. From there I'll need to cross a skyway to tower one where the targets penthouse office is located. Hopefully I'll find the assassin on our way up already. If not I'll have to wait around his target until he shows. I'll keep a low profile, no need to make a fuss. This assassin will stick to the shadows, so to find him so will I."

Garrus flexed his mandibles as he looked at her. "You do realize there is two of us right?"

"Trust me I'm fully aware of it. I don't intend to play fair against her security forces and this assassin. After dropping me off at tower two you will cross the street and park the sky car atop this skyscraper. The distance between the tower should be small enough that you can penetrate any glass windows or prefab walls they already have up with your sniper rifle. The penthouse itself will be protected by powerful kinetic barriers so you will not be able to provide any assistance when I make it there. For my approach I'll stick to this side of the building and link your omnitool into my orbital uplink for accurate scan data and live feeds. Likewise I'll be able to follow anything your omnitool feeds through your scope. You'll be providing overwatch and direct fire support if I need it. From there you'll also have a good vantage point on the skyway as that's where I'll expect the most resistance. Just don't engage anything unless I specifically ask for it.

Garrus just nodded. "I can do that, but Shepard sent me with you particularly to look after you. I think we'd have a better chance if we move in together. This won't be my first infiltration you know."

Eve nodded back. "I know, I looked through your record Archangel. This will work better though, you will be useful for intel and still able to provide cover fire should the need arise. If you came with me all you would accomplish is slowing me down. You'd be more of a liability then a help."

Garrus flexed his mandibles at her straight answer, but nodded once. She knew he probably wasn't happy with what she had just said, but he'd get over it.

As he landed the skycar at his first vantage point Eve came over the comm.

"Hmm, more patrols then I had expected. It seems they know the assassin is coming and are clearing out the second tower. There killing the nightshift workers to get them out of the way."

As he set up his rifle on the balcony he answered. "Can you save any of them?"

The reply was immediate. "Negative. All that will accomplish is letting them know I'm here. The assassin is the only target, anything in the way is collateral damage. Do not give your position away for them."

Garrus sighed and shook his head. "Understood."

Just before they left Shepard had told him to just follow along and watch how she would tackle something like this. Already he saw the huge difference between Shepard and Eve. Shepard would have gone out of his way to save the workers, while she considered them little more than collateral damage. Then again, years ago, wouldn't he have made the same decision. Before Shepard had showed him there was more to missions than the objective. That people and rules did matter. Apparently Eve would need the same lesson.

Rifle now setup, he looked through his scope and had his visor track eve's signal. She was already two floors higher then she had started. So maybe she did work quicker alone. Switching to thermal he scanned the floor she was currently moving along. He still had work to do.

"There are two squads on this level, one in the room ahead of you and moving your way. Looks like there patrolling the entire level. The other is guarding the ramp up to the next level. I don't see a way around them though, you'll need to fight your way through. Watch out when you do that as it'll alert the patrolling squad as well. Call when you need fire support."

He watched her form come to a stop right outside the room the squad was guarding as he heard her giggling come over comms. "Garrus, just to reconfirm, please don't engage anything unless I call for it. Just keep your scope trained around where I am so I get a layout from the building. For the rest watch and enjoy the show, as I'm only gonna do this once."

She just needed to go one level up to reach the elevator that could take her to the top, where the skyway was located. Garrus's thermal images came streaming in her head and were immediately laid over her mental layout of the building. The patrolling squad was about to enter the room she was in, but she was hidden from sight by a large stack of construction supplies. She could just let them walk by and only deal with the guarding squad, but that would take time. Alternatively she could take them out. Ambushing them here would be easy and taking them out would be childsplay. However that also took time, she just wanted to move on. Large parts of this tower were not completed yet though, that left unconventional paths open.

"_Up and over."_

Servos and inertia dampeners powered to maximum, time to see if this security could keep up. Jumping twenty feet straight up she forcefully dug her fingers into the polymer plastic resin that was the ceiling cover. Not lingering for more than .6 of a second she jumped off again. Grappling a ceiling rail she pushed off and slid along the ceiling through a forty centimeter wide gap in the wall and clung to the column on the other side. Sliding halfway down she pushed off again and landed in a roll that put her behind a pile of unfitted panels and passed the patrol that hadn't bothered to look up while they moved into the next room. Keeping her servos in high gear she sped silently along the hallway, inertia dampeners allowing her movements to be as silent as a feather hitting the ground.

27 seconds until she reached the squad guarding the ramp up to the next floor. Schematics showed no other way up as of yet but she had no intention of slowing down now. Mission objective was clear and she had no idea if the assassin was ahead of her or not. An eight man squad with four mechs as support, hardly worth stopping for. Most had taking up position around the hall, with two of them standing guard on the ramp itself. Two seconds later she had analyzed all possible reactions and decided on the best course of action. She pulled out two splash grenades out of pockets in on either side of her legs and ran into the hall at full speed.

As she came into visual range she noticed a brief display of shock on the face of the sentinel in charge. The rest were wearing helmets, but she had no doubt that there reaction would be the same. Then again why wouldn't they be shocked. A human girl seemingly halfway through her twenties in a bright red shirt was running at them at around sixty kilometer an hour. She supposed that shock would be a normal reaction. It only lasted for half a second as she burst fully through the doorway and timed the release of her grenades. She reached behind her back for her weapons while she heard four distinct pops as the grenades went off .7 seconds after release. If her implants didn't automatically filter out the effects, she would now be as blind, deaf and hurt by the tiny tritanium balls the grenades released as the mortals around her were.

.4 seconds after the flashes her weapons were fully out. The two Nova knives activated and plasma screamed across the blades as she ran past the two guards standing on the ramp, not having slowed down in the least. At that speed the plasma blades cut through kinetic barriers, armor and flesh like a hot knife through butter. She was up the ramp and around the corner before their heads hit the floor. In and out the hall in a poultry 2.3 seconds. Leaving six stunned guards and four mechs requesting a target behind.

Garrus knew after Horizon that she was a fighter not to be trifled with, but this was a whole new level of rushing the enemy. Calling her fast was like calling Shepard charismatic. It was true, but didn't do reality justice. He was glad he was recording this or Shepard might have not believed it. As he steadied the scope on the next floor she had just ran up to, he had to admit. Maybe he would have slowed her down just a bit.

The elevator was on this floor, but both squads guarding it had massed around the entrance. They would have heard the bangs of her grenades as well, so no surprise attack for her here.

"_Unless…."_

To her right she spotted a part of the tower where they had apparently been using a crane to move items over a few floors. She could work with that. She pushed off, grabbed a support beam and flung herself onto the next floor. Landing with a roll she took off again full speed. This floor had apparently seen relatively little construction, only a few walls were erected yet. She quickly dodged between them and came to a sliding stop right above the main defensive position in front of the elevator entrance. Four heat signatures glowed directly below her, the twelve others were spread out a bit from there. Two to the left and another two to the right and six fanned out just in front of the main barricade below her. Only two were not within fast striking distance as they were covering from the other side of the room. Well he was here, might as well use him.

"Garrus marking two targets on your visor. On my mark drop them."

The reply was quick and short. "Copy that."

With a soft hum that belied its deadliness the two Nova blades sprung to life again. She positioned herself carefully and then in one swift motion cut the floor out from under her. As she fell she quickly reanalyzed her plan, made some minor adjustments and then locked her moves in.

As soon as the piece of floor she was falling down on hit the ground, instantly taking out two guards, she went to work. A swift strike with her blades took out the two remaining centre units, plasma cutting through armor like it wasn't even there. As the realization of what was happening began to set in with the rest of the patrol she jumped off left towards the two guards there. One had started tracking her with his assault rifle so she cut that in half first. A quick jab with her left made the second guard drop his rifle completely as she sunk her right blade into the first guards chest. Quickly pulling back her left blade cut through the second guards abdomen. 1.8 seconds passed, six down.

She took a short moment behind there cover to mumble a calm "Mark" to Garrus, only to pop out the moment she heard the telltale sound of a sniper round piercing the glass wall. Using her cover as a jump of point she crossed the twenty feet between her and her next target in a flash. Landing with her left foot on his neck, contact with the ground came with the sound of a sickening snap. Placing her right next to his companion, who barely had half a second longer to realize his kinetic barriers were useless against plasma blades. In the mean time the sound of another sniper round reverberated through the room. Four more down, six to go.

As her shields absorbed a few shots she retrieved another splash grenade from her pocket and threw it towards the closest four front guards. In one fluid motion she then threw both of her Nova knives to the remaining two guards on her right and took off for the four in front of her as the grenade went off. From the corner of her eye she noted the knives imbedding themselves into the heads of their targets as she reached the first two of her dazed and wildly firing opponents. A quick kick to the first assault rifle caused him to fire at his own men, killing one of them as she snapped his companions neck. Turning around quickly she jabbed the first one in his neck, crushing his windpipe and causing him to choke to death. She was about to jump for the last one as a sniper round rang out again and the guards head exploded.

"Thought I'd make myself useful."

Eve merely smiled as she went to retrieve her knives, while she hacked into the elevator controls and called it down. Holding the knives at her side she stood in front of the door waiting, more busy with still analyzing the best way across that sky way, when it opened. Revealing two sentinels and a Krogan warlord. Even Eve didn't have time to analyze, theorize or plan now, she reacted purely on instinct. Fight or flight. She could have easily jumped back behind cover, but after decades of war her flight instinct was gone. All that was left was fight, so attack she did. The sentinels went for their guns, giving her at least .8 of a second for a response. The Krogan was more used to battle apparently as he was quicker, forgoing his gun he pulled back for a punch. Eve was quicker still as with a flick of her wrists her blades activated again and both were flung towards a human head. Two sentinels dead, she had no more time to dodge and took the Krogans punch head on.

She literally flew backwards from the impact as she hit the slabs of concrete the guards had previously used as cover with her lower back and vaulted over. She quickly restored balance and landed on her feet, sliding several feet still before she came to a stop only a few feet before the edge of the floor. The Krogan meanwhile let out a battle cry as he reached for his shotgun and charged her. This time she had a full two seconds to analyze. She brushed the damage reports on her face and back aside as nanobots flooded her system to repair any damage. As with her fight with Grunt, a Krogan was too much to take on in a straight up fight. Redundant nervous systems made precise jabs an unlikely option as well. His double wind pipe served as the only exposed weak point. Her eyes quickly judged the distance between her and the Krogan and his speed as he would reach her. Best course of action found.

She stood her ground as he charged. Four feet away Eve ducked as the Krogan fired its shotgun missing with most of the shot, the rest bouncing of her shields. She jumped up as he went in closer for melee, vaulting over the Krogan. Before he had time to stop she pushed off his back again with both feet, sending the Krogan flying over the edge of the tower. She landed neatly in a roll and walked towards the elevator as the Krogan's scream ended in a muffled thump. As she hit the elevators button she called Garrus over comms.

"All clear, move to your second vantage point."

Shepard hit the button for the elevator and it shot off to the eclipse local headquarters. Things were decidedly not going to plan. He had found the Justicar, but police, Eclipse and whoever Samara's target was were all standing between him and recruiting her. Still he would move on, assaulting an eclipse base would hardly be the most difficult thing he had ever done. Simply fight a way in, get the ship name and fight your way out. Nothing ever was that easy though was it. At least the key he got from Pitne For worked.

As he readied Miranda and Zaeed for combat he idly wondered how Garrus and Eve were doing.

When the elevator had opened to a small four man squad she had initially just started killing them, when an idea had hit her. The ideal way across the sky bridge would be to simply walk across it. She had tucked away her knives and calmly killed the remaining two by hand, careful not to damage the suit of the female. The female had turned out to be an Asari under the helmet and the armor was slightly too large for her. However since she still wore her own stripped down recon armor and t-shirt beneath it, it fit just well enough.

As she walked along the skyway at a brisk pace she noted that what had been true in New Eden worked, just as well here. Look like you belong and act like you belong, then everyone will assume that you belong. She had not seen any sign of the assassin along her route, which meant she was either early or he had gone through tower one. Either way she would need to wait around his target and this disguise would allow her to do just that.

As she ascended the stairs in the barricade that they had set up at the end of the skyway she did note one thing. They would not just let her waltz into the penthouse office, she needed to come up with a reason or a distraction. Distraction should do it. She grabbed the last three splash grenades she had with her as inconspicuously as she could and radioed Garrus.

"Wait for a flash, then take out the commander and at least three other targets at the base of the barricade in quick succession."

Garrus was to the point again. "Roger."

She casually turned the corner at the top of the stairs and dropped one of the grenades down the stairs as she did. The other two she dropped at her feet as she approached the commander of the barricade. The Asari commander looked up as she approached and then the world turned white for her. Eve wasted no time as she bolted for the penthouse door, the sound of a sniper round hitting flesh behind her. She stepped through the door and observed the room as it closed again behind her. Four more mercenaries inside as well as the assassins target, Nassana Dantius. Eve had no interest in her dead or alive, she was simply bait. However to stick around she would need to fit in.

"Were under attack at the barricade. Reinforce the door and cover it."

They didn't even question her. Two took cover behind Nassana's desk while the other two joined her to cover the door. Another sniper round could be heard through the door as well as some return fire now, while Nassana cursed behind her. Faintly she picked up another audio signal that didn't belong though. Above her, the air ducts. So that's how he got in, only a matter of seconds now then.

As quickly as it started the noise outside quieted down again and the mercenaries in the room shifted uncomfortably.

"What?" Nassana cried out.

One of the mercs next to her at the door responded. "I thought I heard something."

Nassana sighed. "Check the other entrances."

Quickly the merc moved away from her position at the door and moved back behind the desk to check the entrance behind it. Then a green blur dropped down. She noted he was fast, even for a Drell, as he took down the three guards by hand with ease. Then she saw the gun track towards her. Two shots in quick succession, the merc next to her dropped dead as she dropped to the floor at lightning speed. The down side of her disguise became apparent as the Drell lined up another shot after having knocked out Nassana with a kick to the head.

She quickly pushed off the wall towards the desk and ran a few scenario's in her head in the .6 of a second it would take the gun to track her again. She didn't have time to take off the merc armor like this and there was a high probability he wouldn't believe her with it on. Her shield had already been depleted on the skyway and with her stripped down armor would no longer be able to withstand a close range shot of his hand cannon. That left only one quick option open, disarm the Drell and create time to convince him.

Something was wrong. A merc shouldn't have been able to dodge his shot like that. She had pushed off the wall and slid behind the desk. One round went through the desk, but he saw only the floor through the hole. Nassana would remain out cold for a while yet after his attack and he had hacked the doors so no reinforcements were coming anytime soon. It was him versus her. Still, she was quicker than a normal human or Asari, but he had seen no indication of biotics. He would need to be quicker and more cautious with her, never underestimate your opponent. These thoughts passed through his mind as he rounded the desk at a safe distance, his gun lined up for a shot.

Then things happened all at once. The human women had thrown off her helmet to reveal blue hair and steely light blue eyes as she rounded the corner and flung a seemingly glowing knife at him. He dodged and squeezed of another round as she let loose her second knife. His round nicked her left arm, but no response registered in her eyes as she rolled out of her jump. Her second knife meanwhile hit his M5 head on, almost cleaving the weapon in two. She had somehow anticipated his dodging motion and thrown her second knife accordingly. He let go of the now useless weapon and wasted no time closing in while she steadied herself in a combat pose after her roll. She ducked under his left jab and blocked his right while turning and countering with her left elbow. Her arms felt odd on contact. Muscle mass as expected, but the bones underneath harder than they were supposed to be.

He dodged her elbow with a quick step around that flowed into a high kick from his left. The kick was stopped dead in its tracks as the women before him did something he knew was impossible, but she had done it anyway. She had turned back again and had blind grabbed his leg in the air with her left arm, her grip was almost painfully tight around his leg. That was not was caused him to almost show surprise on his face though, nor was it the sly small smile that had spread across her face. To catch his legs her fingers had just flexed backwards, that got his attention. The odds of her actually being human had just gone down significantly, though he hadn't heard of any synthetic platform with this amount of functionality. The half a second hesitation cost him as she followed up with a low kick to his standing leg, bring him down to the floor at a startling speed.

He rolled out and away as she did the same but in the opposite direction. It took only half a second to figure out why. A blazing knife came flying around the moment she had completed her roll, but it went wide. Did she miss by that much? The sound of her blade impacting flesh told him otherwise. The knife was implanted neatly straight into Nassana's skull. He stopped for a moment, his guard still up, but something was very wrong. A merc wouldn't kill his own employer like that.

"I see that got your attention."

She knew the only way she would get him to listen to her would be to do something unpredictable, something no mercenary would ever do. That's why she had shown of her ability to flex her fingers both ways and now killed Nassana. She had profiled Mr. Krios while they had fought. He was good, very good. Quicker than she had initially anticipated and he read her movements perfectly. If she were a normal human she would have been dead a while ago. Thankfully she was not a normal human. This also meant that this Drell was a true professional, not a single move was wasted and precise movements came seemingly effortless. No emotion shown as he killed Nassana's security detail and no outward show of surprise when she literally dodged his bullet. She could work with a professional though.

"Your target is dead, contract fulfilled, time to move on Mr. Krios. As you've by now realized I'm not part of Nassana's security detail, I was here simply waiting for you. Now that I have your attention, we need to talk."

Still nothing registered on his face, though she was unsure how she would read a Drell's facial expression in the first place. "What is it you wish to discuss?"

She smiled at his neutral response, definitely a professional. "Your next employment if you're interested."

A simple nod in his part motioned her to continue. "I'm associated with someone named Commander Shepard and he'd like your help on a job. He's putting together a team, the best of the best only, and you made it on the list."

He finally seemed to relax, as far as an assassin ever did she supposed. His arms folded behind his back he took two steps closer to her. "I'm familiar with Commander Shepard and his work. It seems unlikely whatever he is planning is a simple hit, or that it will be simple at all for that matter."

She nodded, so the Commanders reputation precedes him. That would be useful. "You're quite right. Shepard is after the Collectors, they have abducted entire human colonies and he intends to stop them."

The Drell's eyes widened ever so slightly, before he turned to look out the window. "Taking down the Collectors would require traveling through the Omega 4 Relay. No one has ever returned from there."

She smiled again at his response. No true professional would ever say no to a job like this, he was driving up the price. Luckily she had not been idle during this conversation either, her scans of him had noted something odd. "I think we can both agree that Shepard has a way of accomplishing the impossible. Even then, I didn't think a dying Drell would be concerned with low survival odds."

That made him turn back to look at her. "Skin slightly paled and slight whitening of the fingertips. Blood flow faster than normal and traces of anticlotting agents present in it. Of course the small clots in your lunges are the main give away. Kepral's syndrome I suppose?"

It remained silent for a few seconds as she let him process what she had just said. "You're quite right. It does not impact my performance though, not yet anyway. The universe is a dark place; I'm trying to make it brighter before I die. You're right that low survival odds don't concern me, the missing colonists do. I will work for Shepard, free of charge."

She had not expected that, the emotionless professional had a conscience. However if it saved her money, she wouldn't complain. Might be worth mentioning that fact to Shepard though, if he was done recruiting the Asari yet.

"By the Code I will serve you Shepard. Your choices are my choices; your morals are my morals. You're wishes are my Code."

A flash of biotic power followed as Samara rose before him. She would definitely be a powerful ally and if Garrus and Eve had been successful his team had just gotten a hell of a bit stronger. They might actually pull this off now. He thanked the detective as his comm. pinged, probably Garrus about there end of this mission. He was slightly surprised as EDI came over the comm. For the next thirty seconds he listened careful his eyes widening a bit the longer EDI spoke. As he closed his comm. he barked at the rest of his squad to hurry as he quickly contacted Garrus to rendezvous back at the Normandy.

Cerberus had piped them a distress call on their next dossier on the list. He felt his heart tighten just a bit as he thought about it.

Tali was in trouble.


	8. Mortal Immortal

**Diclaimer**: EVE Online is owned by CCP and Mass Effect by Bioware, I claim ownership of nothing except the storyline.

To those of you still reading this: No i'm not actually dead, just busy. I apologize for not updating this, but i have simply not had the time. In the mean time all i will say is that i will continue updating this story, but no promises on how quick. I rewrote this chapter more times than i can count and i'm still not 100% happy with it, but at some point you have to make a few choices. At the very least its even longer then the last chapter.

On another note quite a few of you have left a review for me and this i do appreciate, but i would like to respond to one critizism that a lot of you have been conveying. That of the blatant mary sue and i agree with you. Partially this is just due to the tech difference between EVE and ME, but mostly this is a choice i made in the storyline. She will never be an average character and thus must not be judged as such. On the other hand i also agree that a simply overpowered character is not good for storytelling. Suffice to say one must rise before they fall and the story is nowhere near over yet.

In any case i hope the few of you still reading this will enjoy the new chapter and as always any reviews, comments and questions are welcome.

**Mortal Immortal**

Four more hours.

That's how long it would take for them to get to Heastrom.

Too long.

Tali had grown up in the two years he had been gone, he'd seen it back on Freedom's Progress, but to him she was still the frightened young woman they had rescued in that back alley on the Citadel. In the months that followed she had grown more confident, more competent and he had gotten the little sister he never had. She was family and he'd let hell freeze over before anyone messed with that. To that end he knew Joker was pushing the Normandy for all she was worth, but as good a pilot as he was it would still take time to get there.

He took his mind off what he couldn't do anything about at the moment and focused on things he could. The two new additions to his squad seemed to be settling in fine. He was sure of Samara's loyalty after the vow she took, though she had asked for help to further track the criminal she almost caught on Illium. He would find time for that he was sure. Thane Krios on the other hand seemed somehow more content to be here than Samara. The assassin with a conscience Eve had called him. If redemption was what he sought, Shepard wasn't sure he would find it here, but he would help if he could. Any soldier could sympathize with something like that. Garrus and Eve had done a good job at recruiting him, though he heard from Garrus's debriefing that she had made no attempt to save any of the night workers.

Would he have been able to save them? He didn't know, but he knew he would have tried. At least now he knew she would get the job done, if not quite the way he wanted. The footage that Garrus had recorded had shown another thing though, even more of Eve's combat abilities. She was still too much of a mystery. He had both only just met Samara and Thane, but he could understand them, even relate to them. He knew their backgrounds, combat capabilities and more importantly they had similar outlooks on the universe. Everyone had their own opinions and experiences of course, but they were set against a background he knew; a culture he was familiar with and a universe he understood. That made them predictable to a certain point, they were known quantities.

Eve was a blank slate.

An almost split personality with a background he didn't know and technology she refused to share. The others were easy to talk to and bond with because he understood their motives. He could form a team by matching skills and personalities. With Eve he simply had no starting point. So far she could be trusted to complete assignments and help as needed, but he needed more than a loner. She needed to be part of the team. The cheery part of her personality he could deal with, after seeing her interaction with Kasumi he thought everything would be fine. But the serious part of her mind took over in combat apparently as she had all but pushed Garrus to the sidelines on the last mission in favor of doing almost everything herself. He had told Zaeed on Zorya he didn't need anyone but the most dedicated people on his team and he had been serious. The others he could help, understand and forge into a team. Eve somehow wasn't normal. By some miracle of space and time she was human, at least physically speaking, but mentally she was off. Maybe it was the implants, maybe it was the vastly different culture she had grown up in, but something was wrong.

He had talked to her some more while they boarded the ship on Illium and again she was pleasant enough, but he had seen the mask. She was bending her own personality to match what she wanted you to see and think. It wasn't just a solid front she put on either. She was actively changing and molding it, making you think it wasn't there. He had seen her do it, but he had no idea how to get beneath it and he knew that was what it was going to take.

At the moment the priority was to get Tali off of Heastrom, but that was still 3 hours and fifty-four minutes away. After discussing some strategies with Miranda and Garrus, checking his gear and reading up on Heastrom he had no excuses anymore. They had to talk again, a rescue mission had no room for mistakes. A rescue mission involving Tali on a Geth controlled planet would require the best out of everyone and working together like a well oiled team.

He did wonder how Eve would fair against a primarily synthetic race and not just combat wise either. She was more synthetic than human herself, though she did not seem to consider herself either. Could she hack Geth? Could she be hacked herself? Could she be trusted not to go lone wolf on them and jeopardize the mission for something she found interesting?

Either way this would be an interesting conversation once more.

There wasn't much data on the Geth.

Or well, there was; there just wasn't a lot of useful data on the Geth.

Lots of theories and stories, old data from back before the Morning War and some from the recent Eden Prime war, but rarely anything solid. She had gotten a basic idea of how they functioned and some clues as to how they had evolved from the latest war's combat data. Nothing was as conclusive and complete as she liked though. She had no idea on the power of their neural network and what kind of hacking abilities and jamming strengths that would produce. On the surface she would be the stronger and she was one hundred percent positive that one on one a Geth unit wouldn't stand a chance against her. However the neural network allowed them to not only grow there processing ability it also made them gain complexity. They became smarter and more intelligent, besides just becoming faster.

A small group would still be relatively harmless, after all her coding and hardware was much more advanced and augmented by the fact that she retained a human mind. She wasn't bound by pure logic and her thought processes would be completely different than a machine network one. However given enough numbers their processing power could potentially exceed her own. Would she be able to stave off any hacking attempts if there were hundreds of them working together? What about thousands? She had queried EDI, but she had not been able to come to any other conclusions then herself.

She would simply have to wait till Heastrom to find out.

That was not a pleasant thought.

She swirled her drink once more as that thought linked to another. Shepard had been surprisingly curt with her once they had returned to the Normandy. He had listened to her rather short debrief of her mission and had welcomed Thane aboard heartily. However no follow up questions came or any compliment or comment on how she had done. She had expected a full review or at least some form of comment, that was how he worked as far she had profiled him. However when he quickly moved on to the next topic, she understood. The way Garrus had tensed up and shared a quick look with Shepard when the dossier on Tali lit up the conference table, she had seen that look before. She immediately queried EDI for details and had gotten enough to piece together the story. She hadn't paid much attention to the briefing after that, she was far more interested in the reactions, facial expressions and voice pitches from Garrus and Shepard. Tali had been a part of the old crew and for both of them she could tell that meant family. The camaraderie between the two and even already developing between the newer crew members was a bit disconcerting to be honest.

Capsuleers had allies and fleet mates, employees and underlings, even those they considered equals and had respect for. But those were few and far between, trust was dangerous and emotions got you killed, even allies would eventually betray you. When death was a mere inconvenience and time no longer a limited commodity, all that counted was power and money and capsuleers had fallen far or risen high to achieve it. It all depended on who you asked that last one. It was a lesson all capsuleers, even the most naïve and idealistic, learned quickly, by death if necessary. Still there was a time before a capsuleer became a capsuleer, even for her.

That in turn stirred another memory, one long buried. The Federation Navy had been her home back then. Honor and the call of duty had mattered; she actually swore allegiance to an ideal. The Federations ultimate creed: Freedom. She had actually believed in it and that belief drove her career. For over ten years it was her life as she climbed from simple soldier to a member of an advance navy recon squad. Simply designated Forward Nine, the twelve man squad had been her family for nearly three years. Old memories occasionally thought of fondly, though even they were dangerous.

At the chime of the door opening she pushed these thoughts away.

"Care for a drink Commander?"

She did not bother to look away from the passing stars out the window as Shepard entered the room.

"How long have you been waiting for me?"

She managed a smile. "Since you ended the briefing. I knew you would want a word afterwards. Not much to talk about with the crew anyway." She wasn't used to this much company on a ship all the time either. She was starting to miss the quiet in her capsule.

Shepard chuckled at that. "Oh I wouldn't say that. I'm pretty sure Joker would manage to talk even your augmented ears off."

"Perhaps, though I doubt you're here to discuss my lack of socializing with the crew." She took another sip of her drink as he leaned against the window she was looking out of. Blocking out the stars she had been watching behind him.

"Actually that's not far from the truth." Ten possible topics he that could reference popped into her brain. He seemed to think over what he was going to say for a second before continuing on. "Do you believe the Reapers are actually out there and coming?"

The question caught her off guard, as it wasn't in any way linked to his starting inquiry. She took a full second to consider it before answering. She had seen firsthand what Harbinger had done to a collector drone it possessed. How it talked and acted even though she did not yet know how it gained control in such a way. She had gone over the mission files of the first Normandy and broken into more than a few secure Alliance databases going over Sovereign and any related information. Still the full picture was not complete, so much was still unclear. "No I don't believe it." Shepards only reaction was a raising of an eyebrow as he waited for her to elaborate that statement. "Capsuleers do not have the luxury of being allowed to believe anything, no matter how much my Amarrian counterparts would say otherwise. Beliefs can turn out to be true or false and is in no way something any capsuleer can base a choice of. The stakes are always too high too not be sure." Only now she finally looked away from the window and focused on Shepard. "I know they are coming just as sure as you do. A lot is still unknown, too much really, but current evidence allows me to form only one conclusion. They are out there and they are coming."

"And you think you can stop them on your own?" Came the immediate reply.

One she also immediately knew the reply to. "No, and your next question will be: Why I haven't completely disclosed everything I know then?"

"Actually no, my next question was if you know that then why do you keep playing the lone wolf?" Shepard had pushed himself off the wall he was leaning on now and stood straight in front of her. "Trust takes time to build and I'll be the first to agree with not giving your tech to Cerberus of all people, but you are not involved in the least. You stay on the sidelines, offer some curt analysis and then follow orders if you feel like it. I know for a fact that defeating the Reapers will take everything I have and everything everyone has. If we don't fully cooperate they've already won and I know you know this just as well as I do."

Eve merely looked down at her swirling drink. "I do."

"Then why do this, why hold back? I understand that nothing here is as where you're from. You're a long way from home and immediately get a galactic threat thrown into your lap. I'm not expecting you to suddenly know your way around and have all the answers. I'm not expecting you to trust Cerberus or the Alliance or even me straight away. I will not force you or coerce you to do anything, but you know the stakes as well as I do and I'm asking for your help. So why not try and work together, what's stopping you?"

She suppressed a snort. She'd underestimated him, he was much more observant then she had given him credit for. He still didn't understand though. "I understand this galaxy perfectly Shepard. I understand that its lead by a group of fearful and deceitful aliens too stuck up to do anything about a known galactic threat. I understand that this galaxy is about as safe as a lake full of crocodiles and has been fighting one war or another for the last few thousand years. I understand that Cerberus, the Shadow broker and numerous military intelligence agencies have been fighting covert wars for decades now and have still gotten nowhere. It's you who don't understand that even with all this your galaxy is as peaceful as a virgin lake compared to mine. I'm not one of your motley crew of mercs and assassins, I'm a capsuleer."

She could see he was getting aggravated as he balled his hands to fists as he replied. "You're right I don't understand. I don't know your galaxy and I don't fully understand what it means to be a capsuleer. I have nothing more than your vague description to work off and I won't ask for more information on it. But you are not in your galaxy anymore, you're in ours and you need to start acting like a part of this team or I don't want you on my ship."

That made her quirk an eyebrow, but she still didn't look up from her drink. "You're not serious Shepard. You need me and you know it." At the same time she was querying her own motives and came to a startling conclusion. She wanted to stay on the Normandy. That made all thought processes stop for a full second, an eternity for a capsuleer. She had been in contact with this crew for less than four days, not even a speck of time considering her lifetime. She finally looked up to meet Shepards eyes.

She had never seen Shepard with a look like this before.

"Try me."

He was serious. He would throw her of his ship regardless of how much help she could be or how much harm she could do. The last person to look at her like that was her old CO, not long before she became a capsuleer. No one dared to challenge a capsuleer like this back home, even heads of state paid some form of respect and placated capsuleers as much as possible. That was because they knew exactly what capsuleers were capable off, of course Shepard didn't. But she could tell it was more than that, he honestly didn't care. He wanted her help yes, but he also wanted her commitment and he wouldn't take the first without the second. He was just as uncompromisingly idealistic as her old CO…. Son of a bitch.

Her memory augment immediately kicked in and started serving up relevant memories while her cybernetic sub processor began analyzing similarities and differences between Shepard and her old CO. It took her only a few milliseconds to react and shut it down, but quantum computing was quick and had served her up more info than she had wanted to see already. The curse of the capsuleer it was sometimes referred to, she would remember everything in perfect detail for all time and a mere slip in mental discipline would drown you in information. The sub processor had found relevant data and served it up offering the most accurate analysis it could give at all times. It didn't wait for her to ask for information, in combat that could waste precious time. Instead the designers had given her control, but not a shut down command.

"_Halen…"_

She clamped down on that memory like a ton of bricks and shoved her conscious back to the present, the internal struggle having lasted a bare .32 seconds. Shepard was still waiting for an answer; he would get more than het bargained for. Her implants served up more then just an old memory; they had analyzed everything she had on Shepard as well. And no one talked to a capsuleer like that without consequences. She got up and walked past him to one more stare out at the stars. "I used to find the stars peaceful to look at, so serene and beautiful. Now they're just battles waiting to happen. How time can fade and change a perspective still amazes me sometimes."Abruptly she turned around to face him once more. "You say I should stop holding back and go full throttle, just let everything go and focus on the task at hand. I'd argue that you need to try the exact opposite for once, Commander Shepard." She narrowed her eyes and with practiced ease nailed Shepard on the spot with just her look, as she slowly paced towards him. "Since your resurrection you haven't stopped to take a breath once. You have been going from one colony to the other, to Omega and the Citadel, building a team, gathering resources and for what? To fight the collectors? To fight the Reapers?"

Shepard narrowed his own eyes and did his best to match her gaze as she stopped barely an inch from his face. "You know damn well what it's all for. Whether the galaxy believes it or not, we're at war and we are going to need to do everything possible to get ready for it. Every moment we waste more colonies disappear and more humans die at the hands of the Collectors. I can't afford to slow down!"

Shepard practically grinded out those last few words, but she had expected it. "Really? That's your excuse? Pathetic, I had expected more from you commander." Abruptly she turned around again and activated the holographic display in the corner. "Halvats Reach, a normal human colony out in the ass end of nowhere; Recorded population 392. Went dark less then an hour ago, likelihood of Collector involvement 94.6 percent; Likelihood of successful engagement by the Normandy within acceptable timetable, 87.2 percent. The Quarians on Heastrom are barely fielding 100 people, so let's turn around. Fight the Collectors and save the colonists."

Shepard broke the staring contest as he looked away, his voice softer now. "That's not what I meant, we're not ready to take them head on; Horizon proved that. We need more people, more resources and we're going to need Tali."

"That's bullshit and you know it. You may be right about Tali if her record is correct, but that's not why you're doing this. You're not even keeping up this pace because you think the colonies need it. The only reason you're keeping this pace is to avoid having to deal with that nagging voice inside your head telling you, you aren't you any more. That the real Shepard actually died and you're just a shadow that they cobbled back together. You say you want to stop me from acting like a lone wolf, while you yourself are trying to lead a team and at the same time trying your goddamn hardest to ignore anything having to do with you personally. You let Ashley Williams walk on Horizon without even trying to convince her and I'm no expert on aliens, but Garrus seems to aching to get you back to who you were." She poked him in the chest with her finger as she continued. "Oh, you try to act the part and to most it would be convincing, but Garrus and Ashley know you too well and so will Tali. As for me, I've just seen it too many times not to notice the signs. You may not want anyone to notice, but you let death change you."

She could almost see the gears in his head turn as she dug straight through his thoughts to the heart of the problem. That one question he had been asking himself for the last few weeks. Was he still himself? Every capsuleer went through the same thing the first time they died, she had seen it all before and lived it herself. In the end it was a pointless question, but one they all dealt with regardless. She hadn't even needed to see the signs to know this doubt was there, any human would ask the same thing. They all just dealt with it a hell of a lot slower than a capsuleer would.

She had seen right through him and he hadn't even noticed. That one thought he'd buried since he'd woken up. Was he still himself? He half hoped to joke it away as he had done with Garrus, but one look at eve's face told him otherwise. The answer she had given him about the reapers came back to mind, she knew. It didn't matter how she knew now anymore or even that she did, but saying it out loud forced him to deal with it. Something he desperately wanted to avoid. He was alive and would fight, the end. But somewhere in the back of his mind that nagging doubt remained, the reason he avoided thinking about himself too much and avoided thinking about the past. Meeting Ashley on Horizon had only reinforced that idea. After all the real Shepard would have been able to convince her wouldn't he?

He was about to concede her point and end the conversation when something else grabbed his attention. She had seen it before, many a time. She knew.

"How and where did you see this before? This is not something people regularly deal with."

At that Eve froze. Oh, he was good; maybe even good enough to actually pull this off. Most people would have just been an emotional wreck after having there most inner thought ripped out. Shepard still managed to grab onto her one slipup. Very well then, she'd let him in on one of her secrets.

"No it isn't something regular people deal with often, or at all for that matter, but I'll let you in on a little secret. The true reason people fear capsuleers in my universe isn't because of our destructive potential, our nearly unlimited funds or even our ability to outthink most supercomputers. No the true reason is that I can tell you that in my 258 year long lifespan I have died a recorded 473 times and I'm still here. I have been burned, shot, drowned, exploded, imploded and vaporized. I have died in more ways than you can probably imagine and all it has ever done is slow me down. I have seen it before because every capsuleer asks themselves the same question the first time they die and then they move on."

Shepard seemed in shock for just moment before he recovered with at least one question. "How is that even possible?"

Eve just smiled at that one. "Please commander, these neural links are for more then just piloting a spacecraft. At the point of death my consciences gets digitized and pulsed through our fluid router communications network to a waiting clone in a station specified by me. I wake up and am on the move a bare second after I die."

"I can barely believe your being serious, but it would explain a few things I have wondered about. How do you deal with though? How do you go on knowing you're not really you anymore?"

"Who says you aren't? All I can say is that every capsuleer I have ever met would give you this same answer: It doesn't matter."

Shepard gave her a confused look at that. "It doesn't matter?"

"Unlike a capsuleer you are even still in your original body, but in the end you'll never really know for sure if it is the original you or not. All I can say is that it doesn't matter. You look like Shepard, you act like Shepard and you think like Shepard. Even Garrus thinks you are Shepard and if there is one thing that will remain true it's that people will see a change in you quicker then you do. So you are Shepard in all the ways that matter and even the ways that don't. All that remains is you accepting you are still you, to actually make you yourself."

She had backed up a few paces and now looked him dead in the eye again. Even she had to agree they needed Shepard at a hundred percent if they were going to do this. "However that's something only you can do, but in case it might help I'll leave you with one last secret of my own. After 473 deaths, I still believe I'm me."

He seemed to consider that for a few seconds as they just stood in silence. At the very least she had given him something to think about. Now it was up to him. He seemed to have reached conclusion as he met her eyes again.

"I knew I would have to give something up to get you to do the same, but I will gladly say this has been more helpful then I had thought it would be. But now back to you. You mentioned that in your galaxy your consciousness gets transferred, that also means you are now mortal. No fluid router network that I know off in this galaxy to transfer your mind and no cloning facilities to wake up from. "

That caught her slightly by surprise. While the conclusion he drew was wrong, he didn't know she had a clone bay on her ship after all, she hadn't expected him to use himself as bait like that. He had purposefully set this up, she was impressed and that didn't happen often.

"True, it seems we are both experiencing something for the first time then."

Shepard pushed on though.

"That explains some of the odd behavior and how you act on occasion. You just told me that it doesn't matter, I'd like to give you the same advice. Nobody here cares for the fact that you're a capsuleer or the fact that you're an immortal become mortal, Cerberus not withstanding. Start acting like part of the team, you might even end up liking it."

She had to admit he had done a good job of getting her to spill information even at the cost of some of his own. She had underestimated him and that had cost her. She had to admit he had an uncanny knack for apparently intuitively knowing how to approach people, to know when to be friendly, gentle or hard as a rock. She filed this piece of information away, it would not happen again, but for the moment he had won her respect and coming from a capsuleer that was as good as trust.

"My old CO used to tell me never to make a promise I can't keep. I cannot promise I'll do this, but I can promise you I'll try."

She saw Shepard give her a brief smile, he was thinking of this as a victory. That however did not mean she would let him go just like that.

"My old CO told me something else as well though: Trust too few and you get nowhere, trust too many and you die. I still don´t trust anyone here Shepard, but you´ve gained my respect. So I´ll give you fair warning, a warning coming from someone who has watched stars die and battled empires and won. If I find out at any point that you have not been on the level with me, you will find out for yourself why people in my universe truly fear capsuleers and the Reapers will be the least of your worries."

Shepard could see in her eyes that she meant it, but as she had said: it didn´t matter. He had gotten behind the mask and now all he could do was hope. Hope that just like Jack, Grunt and Zaeed, she would turn out for the better and not just a crazy killing machine. He mustered a soft smile for her as he replied. "Your old CO sounds like a wise man."

Unconsciously it seemed a sad smile formed on her lips and Shepard would have sworn that he could see pain in her eyes for the barest hint of a second. "Halen was a she actually." And it was gone again, Eve was back to being Eve. The hint was enough though, he understood. Everyone, even a crazy half-bionic woman from a different galaxy, had history and they all dealt with it in their own way. If she was going to truly try though, he did want her opinion on one thing.

"So you think we can actually win this?"

She gave him a brief smile again, though this one seemed truly friendly. "The great commander Shepard asking me something like that, the others better not find out. I'll give you one insight have gleaned though from my time both here as back home. That as much as some would like to think otherwise, man's history is a history determined, measured, and defined by warfare, with entire periods of time dedicated to the primary material or technology used to create the best weapons of the era. We are a species dedicated to annihilation. And from the beginning of civilization until the end of humanity itself, only one truth really remains: There is nothing that man, nature, God, or the Devil himself can create that we cannot destroy."

He had to chuckle at that as he turned to walk out the lounge, stopping as the door opened. "It seems the Reapers better watch out."

She gave her own chuckle in return. "Oh you have no idea."

"_Yep, she was definitely back to her old self again."_

They had made planet fall quietly enough, the Normandy's stealth drive preventing them from being detected. Heastroms sun was overpowering the planets magnetosphere with radiation and wreaking havoc on their shields whenever they were in direct sunlight. Eve didn't seem to have the same problems as she stood admiring the sunset in a glaring blaze of light. Another mission had produced another suit of armor for her. This one resembled the stripped down armor she wore on Illium but it looked slightly bulkier, though still nothing compared to the heavy armor she had used on Horizon. It was a dull grey color with a lot of angular lines and sensors and antenna sticking out at various points, with little regard for aesthetics. A faint glow a few centimeters above the armor betrayed the active shields, while the heat waves coming off her pulse rifle warned him not to come too close. There was one other addition he noticed, a large grey rectangular object fixed to her back. It matched her armor's design, but was clearly not a part of it. As for its function he could only guess, but knowing her he probably didn't want to know anyway.

He looked at Garrus who was scouting ahead and signaled. "Move out people."

Zaeed, Miranda, Jacob and Mordin moved up in order, used to staying near cover with readied weapons. They were trained to expect trouble at all times. That off course meant that Eve looked like she was taking a leisurely stroll through a park, a park that looked like it had been bombed and flooded with radiation, but she was definitely strolling.

Garrus interrupted his thoughts. "We've got a gatehouse up ahead. Lots of dead Geth units here Shepard, a few Quarians as well."

"Roger that, we're on our way. Hold your position until we get there."

The gatehouse wasn't far, but it had seen a considerable amount of fighting. A chokepoint the Quarians had reinforced against the Geth it looked like. "Can you get the gate open?"

"Yeah, there's a message here from one of the dead Quarians as well. We've got a location on Tali now, according to the message they hold her up in a reinforced observatory not far from here."

"Roger that, open the gate and let's get moving."

And let's hope he wasn't too late.

They had passed a small scout patrol beyond the gate. Nothing she or Shepard and his squad couldn't handle. It gave her a good field test on the effectiveness of her electronic counter measures, or ECM for short, against the Geth though. Her ECM worked differently from the hacking techniques she had found in this universe. They all relied on hacking a certain process in the Geth unit itself, something the unit could self correct from backups and updates through the neural network. Her ECM on the other hand was much less invasive, but an order of magnitude more powerful, forgoing direct changes of their programming it simply flooded the unit with false input data. The Geth would literally be unable to maintain a cohesive target lock on a valid target as it was trying to determine which targets were real, which were not, why the scenery kept changing and how some of them were flying.

She had already determined that in large groups this would be less effective than she had hoped. Small groups she could completely blanket and thus leave helpless, but in large groups the neural network would work too much against it. She would jam up ten units, only to have the remaining ten relay correct sensory data to the affected units in a matter of nanoseconds. Provided she would keep rotating targets this would reduce the effectiveness of the Geth slightly as they would have to keep switching out sensory data instead of allowing one unit to handle this. The amount of processing power they would be able to distribute to analyzing tactical situations would thus be diminished. Not as good as she had hoped, but better than nothing at all.

She was glad she had brought her Caldari made spec ops armor along though. While not as heavily armored as her Gallente armor, the shields made for a far more mobile combat suit and a lot more versatile upgrades. Given the surroundings and the current target it would be a lot more efficient than simple heavy armor.

Shepard had looked at her after they had quickly dealt with the Geth who were busy shooting nonexistent targets. She had merely shrugged, he had nodded and they had moved on. The conversation they had back on the Normandy apparently enough for him to trust her. She still had to shake her had at it. It brought back too many memories of times before she was a capsuleer. Times she had purposefully not thought about for decades. She was still unsure as to why they kept coming back now of all times and whether it was Shepard that was to blame or all this ground work she had been doing. Whatever the case she forcefully shoved the memories back down in her memory implant and focused on the task at hand.

The last time Garrus had doubted Shepards judgment had been well over 2 years ago now. During their chase for Saren they had found time to detour to the MSV Fedele, a ship owned by a certain Dr Saleon. The sick bastard Garrus had been unable to get while he was still in C-Sec. He had gotten away and just continued harvesting organs from his victims in space. When they caught up with him Shepard had chosen to take him in. Garrus had wanted to kill him. In the end the result had been the same as Saleon had refused to come alive, but after their talk afterwards Garrus had understood why it had mattered. More importantly he had understood why Shepard had made the choice he did and he had trusted him ever since.

But Eve had almost made him do just that.

He'd seen Shepard perform the impossible more times than he dared count by now. Coming back from the dead certainly not being one of the least. His own track record of recruiting members also wasn't spotless, but maybe that was why he was doubting this decision. Logically he could understand wanting Eve around. She was more of a living weapon than anyone he had ever met and considering present company that was saying something. But unlike the others Shepard had recruited to his cause over the course of their journey Eve was the only one that felt wrong somehow. He had almost asked Shepard to leave her behind for this mission. Tali was too important to bring a loose cannon along for a rescue mission.

He'd almost thought that Shepards famous intuition had finally failed him, but something had happened during their ride to Heastrom. Shepard had told him they had talked and it would be fine. He'd found it hard to believe but trusted him all the same. When she came down to join the rest ground team for prep he almost didn't believe it. She had not been shy around any of them by any means, but quite distant all the same. Now she was actively engaging in a conversation with Zaeed about how to best fight a Krogan. It would seem like Shepard had done it again and right on time as well. He'd take all the firepower they had in rescuing Tali, he'd grown quite fond of the young Quarian back on the old Normandy.

Shepard caught his eye as they moved up through a narrow corridor to the next open courtyard and grabbed his shoulder for a second, quickly mouthing something for only him to hear.

"Don't worry, we'll get her back."

Bastard hadn't lost even a shred of his intuition.

The sounds of gunfire, explosions and shouting got progressively louder as they moved through the corridor and it wasn't long before Shepard could pick out yelled orders.

"_Fall back to the gatehouse!"_

"_Watch that Armature on the right!"_

"_I need covering fire on my location!"_

They picked up the pace and it wasn't long before the corridor started widening and they once again met Quarian and Geth corpses alike. Garrus quickly stopped at one of the Quarian corpses. "Let me see if I can hack into their comm. signal, that way were at least not running in blind. "

"Make it quick."

As usual Garrus did and only a few seconds later a Quarian voice rattled to life in his earpiece. "All squads, fall back to the gatehouse. We'll make our stand there. Snipers switch to picking off those damn rocket troops, Squad one focus fire on the left flank and squad two get that rail gun working again or those armatures will punch right through our defenses."

They picked up the pace once more and saw a battlefield unfold before them as Shepard made himself known on the comm. "Quarian captain, this is commander Shepard of the SSV Normandy. My squad is on station and ready to assist."

The Quarians reply was instant. "Shepard? Tali's old captain? What are you doing out there? Ugh, forget I asked. Any support you can provide would be greatly appreciated."

Quarians, always so polite even in the heat of battle. "We're just over a minute out. Can you give me a sit rep? Is Tali still alive?"

Again the reply was quick. "As far as I know Tali is fine. We have her secure in the old observatory behind this gatehouse, but were being assaulted from both sides. The main Geth force is in the open courtyard in front of us, but there's another courtyard in between this gatehouse and the observatory. It was domed over, but it partially collapsed and a Geth drop ship dropped a full platoon into the gap. Were still in control of both sides of the gatehouse and the entrance to the observatory, but at this rate it's not going to last long. As long as one of us still draws breath Tali will live, I just can't say how much longer that will be."

"Copy that, stand by."

The corridor finally opened up and revealed a large open courtyard swarming with Geth troops. Shepard estimated well over a hundred enemy units ranging from standard units to the two Geth Armatures stomping around. He quickly assessed the terrain and started barking orders. "We're gonna move up towards the gatehouse over that elevated walkway on the right flank. Garrus hang back a bit as we move up and focus on helping the Quarians as much as possible, Mordin stay with him and start coming up behind us through the path we've cleared. Jacob, Zaeed, you're on point with me, Miranda stay close behind us and focus on taking them out with your biotics. Eve…"

She cut him off at that point. "I'm not staying with you." He resisted the urge to roll his eyes, had she learned nothing from their talk. He didn't need or want a lone wolf. She never even looked at him as she continued on. "I can cross this gap to the Quarians before you even engage the back ranks of the Geth forces. I'll shore up their defenses on both sides long enough for you to make it through. You don't need my help just to punch through this, but the Quarians will take significant casualties in the mean time."

She met his eyes before continuing on. "I haven't forgotten my promise commander, but for once I'm asking you to trust me instead of the other way around."

He could only nod as a reply. "Keep in radio contact."

She smiled and backed up few paced as if preparing for a sprint.

"Besides I haven't been lugging this thing on my back along for nothing."

"I'm assuming you'll let me know what it does before you set it off right?"

She smirked, "Maybe", and took a running jump off the fallen pillar in front of them and disappeared into thin air, literally. He simply shook his head once more and called back to the rest of the squad.

"Let's move out people."

She knew her spec ops armor would be the right choice for the job she mused as she pushed off another column and landed in a roll on a collapsed building. Picking up speed again as she pushed off. The Geth units around her paying her no attention, nor she the Geth units. It helped that they didn't know she was there of course. Her cloak drew a significant amount of power from her suit, but she would cross the entire courtyard in less than forty seconds. Well before she ran out of energy. In the background she could hear Shepards squad make contact with Geth forces as gunfire rattled and the sharp staccato of Garrus's sniper rounds rang out. She was much further along, right in the middle of the main Geth force. Her armors servo's pumped up to maximum output she was simply flying through the Geth ranks. Too fast for the Geth to even react to the occasional muted thump of her armor landing after a jump.

The courtyard elevated up towards the gatehouse, but with her suits augmented mobility it was hardly an obstacle. Jumping off a block of rubble she propelled herself several meters into the air and landed gracefully on an elevated platform three Quarian marines were using for cover. She decloaked as she started walking towards the main entrance where the comm. signal of the Quarian commander originated. Warning lights flashed not a second later as her shield flared to block incoming fire. The Quarians were firing on her!

"_Of all the insolent little….."_

She quit that line of thought and made her helmet collapse into her armor as she spun around to yell at the marines behind her. "Would you stop that for crying out loud. Go back to shooting Geth you idiots." With that she turned on her heel and continued walking towards the main gate leaving three stunned Quarian marines behind. Two seconds later another marine intercepted her.

"_Oh, for the love of…."_

Kal'Reegar was not a happy man at the moment. He was fighting a battle on three fronts, outnumbered and running low on supplies. And on top of all that the blasted sun was wreaking havoc on their remaining equipment. His spotter had reported that Shepards team was hitting the Geth back ranks hard, but it was only a six man squad against the well over a hundred Geth in front of the gatehouse. Granted it would buy them some time, but to win this was started to look like a miracle. So when ZIl'Velu, his second in command, radios him to come to the front entrance urgently he could only assume the worst. A human female in an unknown suit of armor was not what he was expecting. Zil'Velu saluted crisply as he walked along the main barricade towards him. "She appeared suddenly inside our perimeter and demanded to see a commanding officer. Since she hasn't been hostile yet, nor was she Geth, I figured you might want to talk to her." Kal'Reegar simply nodded and Zil'Velu went back to coordinating their defense. Before he managed to get a word in edgewise she started talking.

"I need a sit rep, how many men do you have defending this gatehouse and how are they divided between the main entrance and the courtyard between here and the observatory? How many men do you still have at the observatory and how many Geth are in the courtyard in between the two?"

He almost caught himself answering before thinking better of it. "Look who are you? I have a battle to fight here and don't have time to keep giving people sit reps."

She looked at him for the first time and a shiver went down Reegars spine. Steely blue eyes looked as though they pierced through his mask and looked directly into his mind. Abruptly she started walking towards the main entrance while talking. Reegar had no choice but to follow. "I'm part of Shepards squad and I'm here to make sure you all don't die before he gets here himself."

"No offence, but one woman isn't going turn the tide of this battle."

The strange woman stopped in front of the main gate and turned with a humorless smile on her face. "Oh, you'd be surprised how much difference one person in the right time and place can make."

For the first time he noted the weird angular pack that was fixed to her back as it started a high pitched whine. With a few sharp clicks the pack snapped open revealing a bright spinning cylinder inside. An instant later four rods snapped out the bottom of the device and fixed it to the ground. At this point it disconnected from the woman's back, as she took a few steps away. The high pitched whine seemed to reach a crescendo as the cylinder released, what he could only describe as, a wall of energy. It rushed past him and his men coming to a stable halt just outside their defensive perimeter. He could barely see the faint glow now surrounding the barricades, what he could see was enemy rounds pinging of it and a rocket explode mid air, unable to penetrate the glowing veil. The now even stranger woman turned back to him without a hint of her former smile. "What the hell is that!"

"Standard Reinforced Invulnerability Field Transmitter, or RIFT for short. Tell your men to stay inside the veil as they can walk out but not back in. The shield should hold for quite a while considering enemy forces outside. Now you have time to answer my questions."

Reegar quickly shouted a warning to Zil who started getting the stunned marines back to fighting and turned back to the woman in front of him. He still had no clue where the hell she came from, but arguing with her seemed like a bad idea. "I have 28 marines still holding the main barricade with another twelve on the other side overlooking the courtyard. A further eight are holed up in the observatory. The Geth dropped a full platoon into the gap between us, around thirty units, but the colossus is the worst of it. We can't make a push to the observatory with that thing in there. The colossus is also broadcasting a jamming field, so we don't have radio contact with the other side, but we can still see them fighting from our side of the courtyard. "

The woman simply nodded and started walking through the gateway to the other side. "Tell your men on the other side of the gate to double back and help holding the main gate out front. Coordinate covering fire with Shepard so he can get here. I'll deal with the Geth in the courtyard."

Who the hell was this woman! "Look lady, I thank you for the magic shield you brought along but it's not like we marines can't fight. Our orders are clear, protect Tali and the data at all costs. I'm not letting you run in there on your own."

She turned a put up a small smile. "You've done well holding against these odds on a three front battle, hell most would've folded against these odds on one front, but unless we take out this group your forces will get smashed in the middle." Her eyes went cold again as the smile fell from her face. "But this was not a question or a request. If you want to save your marines do as I say, when I say and you might all get out of here alive. Now get Shepard all the covering fire you can on this side while I deal with this."

That look sent shivers up his spine and Reegar was almost compelled to say yes if only to get her out of his way. But he also had a duty to do, if she was wrong he'd be risking his entire defensive line. Then again at the moment he was merely pulling a holding act and he knew it. He had no escape options left besides fight for as long as possible and hope for a gap. On the other hand if she was right….. "All right, I'm going to trust you. Don't make me regret it or I swear by the ancestors I will …..." He never got to finish his sentence as she started walking away.

After a few steps she stopped again and turned to look back at him and for the shortest moment he would have swore he saw a sad smile on her face. "I won't." Then it was gone again.

"Zaeed, get that destroyer on the right. Jacob you're getting swamped, pull back through that corridor. Miranda move to fill the gap." Shepard was barking orders while pouring fire on the Geth units in front of him. They had been moving up slower than he had wanted due to having to stick to the shade. Every time they got into direct sunlight their shields fried. He pushed past a corner and unloaded a full clip into a group of Geth before jumping round and back into cover while releasing the thermal clip. Progress was slow, too slow.

His comm. pinged.

"Commander I've made it to the Quarian camp and linked up with their commander, Kal'Reegar. You should be receiving more covering fire in a minute. I'm going to deal with the Geth platoon in between the gatehouse and the observatory."

Good with Eve there the odds of the Quarians holding was much higher. "Copy that, we're pretty bogged down here. We're still at least a good hundred meters away from the barricade."

"Understood, relay your progress to Reegar and coordinate covering fire. Oh and Shepard, heads up and wait for the flash."

What? The flash that followed from the gatehouse explained that. "Eve what the hell was that!"

She sounded almost disappointed over the comm. "Well you said to give you a heads up, so I did." He heard a light chuckle. "Reegar just asked the exact same question, so you'll get the exact same answer. Standard Reinforced Invulnerability Field Transmitter, or RIFT for short. It will let stuff out, but not in. I've linked it to your suit data so it will create a gap for the team when you come close. In the mean time I'll have the remaining marines here move to the main battle while I deal with the courtyard. Meet me there when you get in."

Her and her surprises. "Copy that, have you managed to make contact with Tali?"

"Negative commander, Reegar failed to mention that the platoon in between here and the observatory features a Geth Colossus and it's broadcasting a jamming field. I'll see what I can do about making contact once I hit the courtyard."

A goddamn Colossus, that would make things more complicated."Copy that. Watch yourself around the Colossus Eve, those things hit hard. We'll double time it across the gap if the Quarians can provide some more covering fire. Assess the situation and hold what you've got until we get there."

He heard her chuckle again, but there was no humor in the sound. "Oh, I plan on doing more than assessing the situation."

He could only sigh. After there conversation he understood where her idea of invincibility came from, but what he didn't understand was why she didn't adjust. He had seen on Horizon that she wasn't invincible, even her armor could crack. A sniper round impacting the pillar he was using for cover snapped him out of his musings. Shoot first, talk later. "Roger that, just Eve…."

"What?"

"Try not to die…"

He could hear loud laughter as she closed the comm.

Marines ran past her to the other side of the gatehouse with Reegar barking at them. The Colossus itself came into view over the ridge of cover that the Quarians had hastily erected. The quad legged monstrosity was bigger than she had expected. Standing at least a full twenty five meters high and slightly more than that in length she quickly analyzed its combat effectiveness. The main head mounted cannon would blow away most forms of cover and would definitely pose a threat to her current armor; thankfully its firing speed was low. The main body itself featured no less than six antipersonnel turrets mounted on various points. Its legs seemed like a weak point at first, but the reinforced joints and armored legs would be just as hard to crack as the main shell. All in all it boasted enough firepower to level a building.

Thankfully so did she.

She moved up a bit further, standing at the edge of the barricade, and got a visual on the other side of the courtyard. Another hastily erected barricade in front of a small entrance door to the observatory. Eve counted only five people holding the barricade, either they were all holed up inside, or Reegar had lost more people than he thought. Passive thermal scans of the area suggested the latter. She zoomed in closer and got a visual on one Quarian pumping shotgun rounds into the advancing Geth units. Brave, that one.

With a thought her rifle powered up and shields flared to maximum power.

"_Time to boogey." _

They just kept coming, from all sides. She had to have killed dozens of Geth units on her own by now and still there were more. The Colossus had seemed to mostly engage the main gatehouse and leave their side alone, but there were still enough Geth platforms to overwhelm them. She had been fighting almost non-stop for hours and she could feel her arms and legs becoming ever heavier, her shotgun take ever more effort to reload. She pumped another round towards a Geth platform, knocking it to the side. It sustained damage, but she could tell it would remain operable. They were just far more resilient than any organic could ever be.

Suddenly she noticed the quiet.

It wasn't completely quiet by any means, she could still hear the far off shouting and thunder from the battle on the other side of the gatehouse. Closer the Geth units were still firing and she could hear the few marines next to her fire of bursts of mass accelerated rounds into them. But the steady staccato of gunfire from the other side of the courtyard had stopped. They were getting no more covering fire!

"_Keelah"_

Had they all been killed? Did Reegar have them pull back because he needed them on the other side? More incoming fire pulled her out of her thoughts. She couldn't afford to ask those questions now, she had more immediate concerns.

She activated her combat drone and sent it off to the left flank to pull the Geth out of formation as she reloaded the thermal clip in her shotgun. Priming an overload on her omnitool, she jumped out of cover and let loose. The overload dropped the nearest Geths shield and the follow up shotgun blast completely separated the top half of the Geth from its legs. Flickering, the light on its head died as she aimed at the next target. Chiktikka pulsed and an arc of electricity hit another Geth, two more shotgun blasts put it down for good.

Rounds started pinging of her shields as she ducked back into cover. Ejecting the thermal clip, she listened to the Colossus stomping around behind her. It was slow moving, but once it tracked her the column she was using for cover would be useless. Her only option was speed. She rolled out of cover again as she tracked the nearest Geth platform and let loose another round. From the corner of her eye she saw the Colossus fire. Instinctively she shielded her head even though she knew it was pointless. The round hit with a deafening blast, audio dampeners in her suit automatically kicked in as she could feel the shockwave pass her. Little pieces of rubble bounced harmlessly off her kinetic barriers as she rose to an unexpected sight.

Amidst a cloud of dust an unfamiliar figure appeared, shields glowing faintly from the dust surrounding it. The small crater around him betraying what happened, he had taken the Colossus shot head on. She didn't have time to fully comprehend the gravity of that fact before he started to move again. White light flashed as a Geth platform was annihilated and the figure raced through the rubble to get to the next target. Whoever he was, he was quick beyond anything she had seen before and whatever weapon he was wielding made short work of the Geth platforms. The stomping from the Colossus snapped her back to reality as she saw it attempt to track her new ally in vain. Snapping a new thermal clip into her shotgun, she popped out of cover and got to work again.

They might have a chance after all.

Eve was cursing herself for not bringing her heavy armor as alarms bleared in her head. Her shields were dangerously low and she was overheating her armors servo's to the breaking point to keep the Colossus from tracking her. Taking a shot of its main cannon head on had not been in the plan, but she had recognized the female Quarian from the Normandy's database. She was the primary objective and thus not expendable, it had been the only viable option. The normal Geth platforms meanwhile didn't stand a chance against her and she was taking them out with brutal efficiency. With every flash of white light another platform ceased to exist as she dashed from target to target, but sooner or later she would have to deal with the Colossus. She had her electronic countermeasures cycling as best as possible but the Colossus simply had too many sensors and processing power to succumb to it. She at least managed to take the jamming field offline with it, better than nothing.

Then her comm. crackled to life. "Eve this is Shepard we've made it to the Quarian position and are reinforcing it as best we can. Something that shield of yours is making a damn side easier I might add. Me and Garrus are on our way to the other side to help deal with the squad cutting Tali off."

"Copy that Commander. I'm almost done finishing off the last Geth platforms, but the Colossus remains. I've been unable to penetrate its defenses while maintaining my current pace and I do not have enough shield power remaining to take its main cannon head on again. "

"Understood Eve, hold what you've got. We'll be there momentarily."

With a flash another Geth platform sputtered out and died. Landing with a roll she immediately pushed off in a dead sprint as the stone column behind her blew up in a shower of rubble. The Colossus was predicting her movement patterns.

"_Hold what you've got. Easier said than done."_

Garrus was right behind him as Shepard ran through the gatehouse while raking his brain for options. He had taken down Colossuses before, but never on foot. He was carrying the Arc projector on his back as a heavy weapon, but that was only any good against shields. Eve's weaponry actually bypassed mass effect shielding all together and she was having trouble with the armor already. As they passed the barricade the Quarians had been previously using they caught sight of Eve as she dodged a shot from the Colossus main gun. The column behind her crumbled and collapsed as her rifle flashed and took out a Geth destroyer.

"I'm going to circle around and see how the Tali and the remaining Quarians on the other side are doing. You stay here and keep them off me."

At that Garrus unfolded his sniper rifle and jammed in a new thermal clip. "Oh, I'll do more than keep them off you."

"Just try not to hit me as well this time." Shepard yelled back as he jumped over the last barricade. As he ducked behind a fallen column as cover he got Garrus reply over comms.

"Well maybe if you hurry up this time…. "

Shepard had to chuckle at that. "You just watch your ass Vakarian."

"Same to you Shepard."

Popping out of cover for a few shots on a nearby Geth platform he contacted Eve. "Eve, me and Garrus are in direct support positions. Can you confirm Tali is still alive?"

The reply was instant. "Confirmed Commander, there are still a few Quarians alive and shooting Geth; Tali among them."

He jumped over the fallen pillar and took a sprint to the next cover available. "Copy that. I'm going to circle around and make contact with the remaining Quarians on the other side. See if we can coordinate our attacks on the Colossus."

"Roger that, I'll draw its attention away from you for a clear run."

Just as Eve said that Shepard watched her dodge another blast by the skin of her teeth. "Copy, just watch the hell out for that main gun. It'll easily blow through any of these columns."

He could hear the sarcasm in her answer. "Hadn't noticed that." Then a second of silence. "Actually that gave me an idea. Make your run Commander I'm finishing this thing."

He had to suppress a sigh. "Just don't blame me if you get your ass shot off."

Eve's laugh was the only reply he got before the comm. line cut off. Moving from cover to the next he spotted Eve moving around at speeds well above what was possible for a normal human. The Colossus meanwhile was busy tracking Eve with its main gun, however its antipersonnel turrets tracked independently. Shepard ducked behind another piece of cover as hypervelocity rounds pinged off his shields. He stayed there for a few seconds and heard the turret had moved on to the next target. Popping out of cover he briefly glanced at Eve as she ducked behind one of the columns still left standing. Sprinting for the next piece of cover he took a few potshots at one of the few standard Geth platforms still standing. He couldn't help but look back behind him at the thunderous sound of the Colossus main gun firing. Striking the column Eve had ducked behind only a second ago. He watched the column topple precariously before it suddenly jerked forward, straight for the Colossus. As it fell he couldn't help but smile as a figure became visible at the top of the column. Riding it down like it were a wave Eve's armored form gave of jets of what seemed like plasma, guiding the massive column down towards the Colossus. With a deafening crash the column impacted the Colossus, its shields flaring briefly and in vane as the column completely shattered its main body a mere moment later.

As the dust settled his comm. crackled to life. "That worked better than expected."

"You are one crazy ass woman Eve."

Shepard couldn't help but chuckle as he moved out his cover and walked towards the Quarians still alive. "Amen to that Garrus."

Tali had seen a lot of things during her short life. She had killed more Geth than most armies. Helped stop a rogue Spectre and assisted in killing an ancient machine hell bent on eradicating all life in the galaxy. During that time she had seen Shepard and his crew pull of stunts that most would deem impossible. But riding down a concrete pillar weighing at least 4 tons, onto a Geth Colossus in order to crush it ranked up there right with the best of them. Whoever this person was, he was one hell of a fighter.

She lost track of the grey armored fighter in the smoke and dust that had been thrown up from the impact and looked back to the few marines remaining. Only four were left out of the twenty first with her, so many lost and for what. Some data on a star dying, was it really worth it all? She didn't have the answer to that, it would have to be. She did a quick check on her shotgun before moving towards the surviving marines when another form caught her eye.

"Shepard!"

The word had left her mouth before she even thought about it. Shepard smiled at her as he heard his name called. Making his way towards her through the rubble she could see Garrus in the distance as well. What were they both doing here?

Finally he made it to her. "Good to see we made it in time."

Tali was still a bit stunned as almost 3 straight days worth of fighting unloaded on her. "Shepard? How?... But…What are you even doing here?"

That smile she knew so well formed on his lips. "I was in the neighborhood, thought I'd drop by."

She couldn't help it, three days of stress and he made a joke. She laughed for all she was worth. "You do show up at the strangest of times. Though I can't really complain about your timing, if not for you we'd have nobody left here now."

Shepard gave her a sad look and put his hand on her shoulder as he led her back towards the gatehouse through the rubble. "I'm sorry Tali. We came as fast as we could and we're still not out of this yet. On the other side of the gatehouse Reegar is still fighting off quite the Geth army."

"And we better go help him, my shield won't hold forever." From the side of her mask she caught the grey armored fighter walking out of the smoke. Her voice sounding a lot more female than she was expecting.

"Tali, allow me to introduce one of our latest additions to the crew, Eve." At that her helmet collapsed to show a blue haired human woman. Tali almost did a back flip, from the size of the armor she thought the fighter male, not female. She was definitely wrong though, Eve's head looked rather small when compared to her armor, but there was no mistaken it was feminine. For a second she was stunned I silence before Eve spoke in a strange overly calm voice, like she had just walked away from a relaxing day at the beach instead of a battlefield.

"We can get acquainted later, for now I'm pleased to meet you." Then she just ignored her and started walking back to the barricade as she called back to Shepard. "I'll help shore up the main line again, meet me there when you're done here and we'll discuss an exfil plan." At that she simply walked off, leaving her slightly stunned.

Shepard meanwhile was just grinning. "Yeah, she does that."

Garrus meanwhile had ran past Eve's retreating form. "Thank the spirits, you're alright. For a moment there I thought we might have been too late."

Tali smiled beneath her mask. Him she knew how to deal with. "Be careful there Garrus or I might start to think you actually care."

Garrus gave her an easy chuckle and avoided her gaze for a second as her gave his usual reply. "Well we can't have that, I have this dangerous vigilante image to live up to after all."

"I was wondering how long it would take Shepard to find you again after I met him on Freedoms Progress. I hope Omega didn't treat you too badly."

Garrus gave her a slightly dark chuckle for that. "You might get a surprise when I take my helmet off."

"Wait, wait, wait, you knew what he was doing on Omega?" Shepard cut in as they started walking back to the main barricade.

Garrus beat her to answering that. "Of course she did, you didn't think we would stop talking just because you weren't there anymore did you?"

"All I'll say is I remember too many of your conversations ending in shotgun remarks."

"You're just still sore we had something to talk about on all the elevator rides."

Shepard and Garrus continued to banter on as they headed back to the gatehouse as Tali followed, smiling in her helmet the whole way.

It was good to have them back.

Now all they needed to do was get out alive.

Shepard had to admit that Eve's shield was holding out nicely. The Quarians hadn't taken any more casualties since it was up and combined with his own squad they had managed to hold off the Geth. On the other hand Eve had been clear about her shield, it wouldn't hold forever and there were more than enough Geth still out there. They needed and exit plan and preferably quick.

He called Reegar, Miranda and Garrus over to discuss a plan. Naturally Eve joined in of her own accord.

"Our ship is located here and as far as we can tell it's been left untouched after we abandoned it for the gatehouse. The Geth ignored it as it wasn't a threat. At some point we'll need to make a push for extraction."

"I agree, but we're probably better off waiting as long as we can to wear out the Geth forces." Miranda added.

"I'd actually say the opposite. The Geth don't get tired, we do. The Quarians are already running low on ammo and we won't be long behind. The faster we get out of here the better I'd say." Garrus countered.

Shepard knew Miranda and Garrus would butt heads eventually. They just looked at things too differently. Miranda always wanted to plan everything and preferred control over everything. Garrus on the other hand was a lot more aggressive and prepared to improvise on the spot. At the moment he agreed with Garrus though, the faster they could get out of here the better.

She didn't much care for the conversation taking place. It was planning so rudimentary, with so few options that she could keep up with just a glance at the map. She was considering something completely different. Regardless of what plan they came up with casualties would mostly likely be high, the Geth were simply more efficient as a large unit then organics were. They would adapt to any planned push and counter attack appropriately. Then of course there was the numbers advantage that even she would be hesitant to take on. She had burnt through a lot of systems to take out the Colossus and its escort and was running low on nanites to repair all her systems.

There was another option, one she had simply thought about before but now seemed like an actual viable option. On the other hand it was also the only option that would put her at risk as well. At the moment she was more having an internal moral debate on whether or not to even propose it than the actual feasibility of it. The other thing that worried her was the fact that she was having a moral debate in the first place. She came up with several possibilities, mostly revolving around Shepard and bringing up old memories. Maybe it was just the amount of ground combat she had been doing as of late, more then she had seen since her time in the Gallente Navy, but something kept triggering old memories of her squad. Memories she had successfully buried for centuries were coming back up, it was disconcerting to say the least.

On the other hand she had made Shepard a promise and she always kept her promises. However the risk factor was still high, with too many unknowns. In the unlikely event that her plan backfired the rest would pay the price. In the end she considered it too risky.

As Shepard wrapped up the meeting and Reegar started barking orders for a concentrated push, she put the thought away. She would help the push as is, it would have to be enough.

The plan was simple enough. The Quarians would make a concentrated push for their ship while his squad covered the back to make sure they didn't get boxed in. He had looked at Eve and she had merely given him a nod as she walked off. He still couldn't read her properly. For now though he had other matters to attend to. At the edge of the shield Quarian marines were already massing for the push. All they could do now was fight and hope for the best.

"Damn it"

Shepard ducked behind cover as hypervelocity rounds sprayed off his shield.

"Garrus covering fire, now."

"On it!"

The crackle of Garrus rifle rang through the valley as did many other guns. They started the push hopeful, but after only a few minutes things had started to go sideways. The Geth reacted quickly and with two Armatures redeployed the front line was soon bogged down. Admittedly he was in the rear, making sure they still had an escape route back if they needed it, but he had only made a few dozen feet from the shield.

Purple light lit up above him as Eve cracked over the comm. "I've got you covered commander, move up."

She was still standing on the ridge of the gatehouse inside her shield. Her rifle had enough range with whatever that purple ammo was she used and he had to admit that her accuracy had not suffered one bit. The explosion of a nearby grenade snapped him out of it again as he popped out of cover and fired off a few rounds.

They had made the plan, they better see it through.

She could tell the Quarians were giving it all they had and slowly but surely they were pressing on. As she had suspected the Geth adapted quickly, but they were not as effective as she had feared. She fired of a few more rounds and few more Geth platforms ceased to exist, when she noticed something was wrong. The Geth were leaving a gap near the end of the Quarian formation, Shepard was only facing minor resistance. That made no sense, logically you would use a larger force to surround the smaller one to trap it. The Geth had displayed the use of far more advanced tactics during the day so this made no sense. Unless…..

"Shepard it's a trap, watch out!"

No sooner had her voice died over the comm. as more Geth contacts popped up along the rear, a lot more. She started firing off her rifle in quick succession, I had been a trap and in her arrogance she hadn't caught it sooner. The Geth had lain there dormant, acting either hit and disabled or judging by the look of some slightly buried. They had been expecting a push for the Quarian ship. Then she noticed something worse, a Geth armature popped up just twenty meters from Shepards location and judging from its stance it was targeting him. Sand was pouring off the body as it stood to full height and visibly charged its main cannon.

"_Not again.."_

That thought shot through her as she made a snap decision. Deactivating her gun she shunted power into her internal sub processor and forced a wireless link. The Geth programs had no time to react before she started shredding through the Armatures internal systems. Point two seconds in she started encountering a fragile resistance but it made no difference. In less than a second she had completely disabled the armature and she was flying through the neural net. She had thought about it earlier and dismissed it for its risks, but now that she was in she had no choice but to press on. The Geth were quick to react to the new threat and started massing in neural hubs. She quickly identified these and started assaulting them one by one. The Geth seemed confused at first but then determined, resistance grew with every platform she disabled as the Geth learned.

But she had no choice now, but to press on.

Shepard looked as all around him Geth platforms either collapsed or reacted slower and slower. Geth resistance was completely crumbling. He had heard Eve's warning and for a moment he thought that was it, but then the Armature just collapsed. He heard Reegar call for a push again over comms, so they must have noticed it at the front as well.

Eve still stood inside her shield at the top of the ridge overlooking all that, like a statue. She wasn't moving at all and he got a vague idea of what she was doing. In any case she was still fighting, maybe even harder then she had before.

Now they might actually do this.

And then Joker came over comms. "Commander, watch yourself I'm tracking incoming from the south. Three Geth drop ships and I'm guessing there not empty. "

Nothing was ever easy, was it.

Something was wrong again. She tracked the Geth drop ships at the same time the Normandy did. They had taken off at the exact same time as she had linked with the Geth. That could not be a coincidence, but as the Geth drop ships cleared the valley ridge and came within tight beam range, all she could do was continue her fight on the digital plane as more Geth programs poured in. Then something changed, the Geth didn't just throw themselves at her anymore. Their numbers increased and thus so did their tactics evolve, but this was different. She could feel the Geth reinforcements dropping in on the valley floor, but could do nothing to stop them. She was tied to the fight she had here and the Geth required ever more processing power to take on.

She was driving her internal sub processor to its limits but the Geth were not budging, she had lost control of the link. The reinforcements were too much and too many programs were flooding through the link for her to fight. Thousands of them at a time. She was fighting them with all she had, every trick she knew, but the Geth were far more adaptable than she had thought. They were reacting quicker than any records indicated and every trick she pulled was useless a second time. Something was driving the Geth beyond what they had done previously, but she couldn't spare the processing cycles to figure it out.

It was too much.

The programs started flooding into her own implant structure. Immediately Aura detected the breach and shut down her neural link to the ship to prevent the programs from leaking over. She scraped her mind for options, but at the same time something else found a way into her consciousness: Fear. Capsuleers didn't feel fear, they were the immortals. They feared nothing, but then again she wasn't immortal anymore. No neural link meant no transfer of consciousness, no waking up in a new body. She would die. She needed an escape and she needed it now. The Geth programs were still tearing through her mind and slowly, so very slowly she was losing control. On the edge of losing everything she took the first option she had. She couldn't care about the consequences, not anymore. She'd give them as much warning as she could and hope it was enough.

Calmly she began to speak into her comm.

Reinforcements were dropping in everywhere from the three drop ships and Geth gunships roared overhead, whatever Eve had been doing to them had completely stopped. Most of the Quarians had spread out for a push back to their ship and their united front was a mess. He was fighting for all he was worth as Reegar kept yelling orders at his troops, but he could already tell it wouldn't be enough. He ducked for cover as his comm. pinged and Eve's calm voice pooled over the channel, though it sounded strained somehow.

"Commander, I'm sorry. Pull everyone back to my shield and I'll pump it up as much as I can. You have about four minutes."

Four minutes? What the hell was she doing? In the distance he could hear Reegar calling his squad back to the beacon, he had learned not to doubt her word by now. But if Reegar heard that then so had everyone else, she was on open comms! He couldn't break the link though as Eve kept calmly talking over the open line.

"Aura, confirm voice authentication: alpha-mike-three-eight-sixteen-golf-one-romeo-echo -twenty-eight-delta-sierra-x-ray."

A smooth female electronic voice he hadn't heard before replied. It reminded him a bit of EDI somehow, but without any form of personality.

"Voice authentication confirmed. Emergency remote operation protocols in effect."

"Prep for C.O.S., confirm copy."

"C.O.S. confirmed, beginning burn cycle for upper atmospheric geosynchronous orbit at target location. ETA two minutes."

At target location? She was talking to her ship, but what was she planning? Then it hit him. She wouldn't, she couldn't.

"Decloak port bow, sections eighteen to fifty two. Unlock turrets six through ten, reload to tactical M crystals. Begin calculations for orbital strikes. Turrets six through eight, three quarters yield tight beam cluster on marked locations. Turrets nine and ten calculate for high diffusion rate, blanket area spread at target locations. Set for two second exposure at fifty percent yield, confirm copy."

"_God damn it she was."_

"Orbital strike confirmed. ETA to end orbital maneuvers one minute twenty seconds."

Reegar had heard it too and he could hear him yelling in the background for his troops to get back to the force field. He had his mind on his men, Shepard had his mind on Eve as he ran back to where she was standing stock still in front of the shield generator. Her helmet still folded down, her face expressionless. Only one question running through his head as he approached her.

"_What the hell was she thinking?"_

He stopped right in front of her. "Eve, what the hell are you doing?"

The answer came straight away, but something was wrong. "What I can." It sounded frail, he had never heard Eve sound anywhere near that. More importantly her mouth hadn't moved as she said it. She only talked through his comm.

"What do you mean? Talk to me Eve. We need more time to get everyone back into the shield again."

"Can't risk it."

"What do you mean you can't risk it. Why are you acting so weird, what the hell is going on? Give us another ten minutes and then launch the strike. We should have all of them back by then."

"No time. You need to push me back and hook my suit up to the generator. The shield won't hold without extra power."

"Dammit Eve give me a straight answer. You're about to kill what's left of the Quarian platoon."

He was angry and he didn't care, but everything came to a halt when he saw one tear rolling down her completely blank face.

"They're in my head."

And then it clicked. She had been fighting the Geth through her neural connection, he had known that much. He just hadn't realized what the added numbers had done. She was losing the fight and had been pushed back to the borders of her own brain. She wasn't just fighting for their lives anymore, she was fighting for hers now. He couldn't stop her and now he didn't know if he would even if he could. He resigned himself to the inevitable and called Garrus over to help move Eve's bulk over to the generator.

He could only hope that as many as possible made it back to the shield.

She could tell her body was being hooked up to the Generator as she had fought hard to keep that connection. She didn't feel a thing as she had been dragged over though, her sense of touch was something the Geth had already taken from her. Sacrificed to maintain more critical parts. As the connection was made she pumped her generator to maximum power and shunted it into the shield. Then next four seconds were a frantic struggle to keep both the connection and the RIFT generator locked out from the Geth. Finally after what seemed an eternity Aura finally came back over comms.

"Atmospheric maneuvering complete."

"Trajectory calculations finalized."

"Orbital strike ready."

With a last push she reached for control of comms. and managed to whisper one word before she was beaten back.

"Fire"

"Orbital strike launched."

She couldn't hear the roar as outside the shield as the air itself started to burn, nor could she feel the heat through the shield like the others. Nor did her sensors tell her anything about what was lost. She could tell the Geth were not pouring in anymore. She pushed them back, retook systems and brutally ripped apart every Geth program she could find, denying them any hiding place. Only a fraction of a second passed as she retook most of her systems, now that the link pouring in more Geth was gone. But during all that she could do one thing: watch.

Watch and hope.

As a valley darkened by dusk, lit up brighter than day.


End file.
